Government should be limited to the tasks that our founder's intended.
Posted on 09/23/2008 9:30:52 PM PDT by jakerobins
The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient's condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.
Billions more in taxpayer dollars may have been wasted over the last decade because the government-run health program for the elderly and disabled paid out claims with blank or invalid diagnosis codes, such as a "?" or "zzzzz." Medicare officials say even smiley-face icons could have been accepted.
The report by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security investigations subcommittee, obtained by The Associated Press, is the latest to detail lax oversight in the $400 billion program that has been cited by government auditors as a high-risk for fraud and waste for nearly 20 years
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Read von Mises, Washington. It’s hard to be economical without prices to guide you.
Amputees put shoes on their prosthesis. It protect the prosthesis and allows them to look more normal. Also..If a person is merely missing one limb they still need to buy a **pair** of shoes. That’s how they are sold.
You are right. As a conservative AND a health care professional, I am embarressed by all this. If someone is diabetic and has had an amputation, they obviously have major circulation problems secondary to the diabetes. Should we NOT pay for a solid, supportive, protective shoe for the remaining foot? Yea, that's a great idea, let's get an ulcer on the remaining foot, amputate that one, and then pay for that person to spend the rest of his/her life in a nursing home. Great idea. Cost-effective, too.
The orthopedic shoes that someone with poor circulation in their feet requires are not cheap. They are sold in drug stores and medical supply stores and are individually fitted. This article is stoopid.
Government should be limited to the tasks that our founder's intended.
ping
Note to bankers: Submit defaulted home loans to Medicare for reimbursement. Cite diagnosis as depression brought on by economic hardship.
What's the problem?
Stand up Chuck !!!
Liberals in the medical care industry are thieves. Now that’s news. Who woulda thought it....
Isn't impotence a result of circulatory problems, which is a direct result of diabetes?
This article is terrible. "Journalist" needs to find a decent fact-checker, instead of just publishing his opinions.
There's plenty of fraud in Medicare, but articles like this do far more harm than good when it comes to exposing it.
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