The Cost of Medicare Fraud is Huge and Real

Right. In financial misdeeds, the estimated recovery is 10cents on the dollar. Since it's still just another branch of the gummint, why think there is any difference? And then, where does the recovery go?

If it is a matter of the lack of talent, whereby the interested auditor could spot systematic inconsistencies, why would the same gummint want to increase the corps of IRS auditors? Anybody who pays taxes knows it is a fraction of the gain. Whereas, if it is fraud, the whole enchilada is subject to recovery plus, one would imagine, fines and penalties.

Recently, I think it was Laffer (of the Laffer Curve fame) who calculated that, had the Soc Sec Trust been allowed to use fundamental investment policy, the person who gets $1,800/mo would now be getting $18K/mo.

Gummint.........where would we be without their tender love?

The perp of one of the largest Medicare frauds ever (discovered and) perpetrated , Philip Esformes got 20 years for cheating Medicare out of about $1 Billion per a jury of his peers.

But the former President commuted his sentence though he still faced other charges. The Miami Federal Grand jury had deadlocked on 5 or 6 charges and found him guilty on 20 others. This was a one billion dollar case and Federal Prosecutors have wanted to try him for the charges that DJT did not exonerate him from. At the time Esformes was ordered to pay $5.5 back to Medicare (the Iceman can do the math on that travesty) and over $38.5 million to the Federal Govt.for which he had to pledge $14 million in assets.

The Feds seemed to want to try him on the deadlocked charges but have been in negotiations with Esformes lawyers to get him an even sweeter deal. The smell of corruption even extended to the University of Pennsylvania Basketball team where former basketball coach Jerome Allen (now an NBA asst coach yep) admitted to receiving huge bribes to get Esforme's son on the Penn Basketball team which gained him admittance to the Penn.. He never played a game but did graduate from Penn....which after all was the whole purpose....to get his kid into an Ivy League School.

There's much more to this story but I personally find so many aspects of the Esformes saga to shine a light on some fundamental problems and "look the other way" mentality and negotiate instead of trying the case mentality that is ever more pervasive in the nation....because these kind of bucks make the Teapot Dome Scandal nothing. And what does it do to Medicare and Americans' benefits. Even now $1 Billion can provide a lot of benefits. Rant over.

Well I try like heck to avoid political comments here because it leads to unproductive torrents of off point posts.

Let's say Enformes had masters to learn from.

It is a fact that back in 1997 when Rick Scott was amassing his fortune as head of a health care company he was called upon to testify under oath at depositions.....
and he took the 5th to avoid self incrimination 75 times.

Evenually $1.7 billion in fine was paid in of one of the largest Medicare frauds (maybe the largest at that time--- in US history. Imagine all the frauds that have not been caught or fully restituted over all the years and think about the good that money could have done. Just sayin'.