Government Medical Plans Loses $200 Billion To Medicare Fraud
Posted on Sat, Aug 01, 2009
I don't think anyone disagrees that we do need health care reform. But I think many are truly concerned about the cost of a completely new system versus fixing the problems in the system we have. When the USA became a free country it embraced an ideology of free market enterprise and small government.
At the time the constitution was written the damage that can be caused by letting a government become too big and too powerful was all too apparent. I think this is a valid concern today.
In government the most powerful senators are the ones that control the largest budgets. Obviously healthcare is huge! Management systems in Washington work in reverse of the free market system. In Washington budgets are reduced if they are not spent in the previous year, so the emphasis is to grow your budget. Larger budgets equate to more power and control for your department. In the free market system CEO's are rewarded for reducing costs and saving money, while continuing to maintain a healthy budget for research and development. Free market system is more efficient and more likely to achieve the results we need in our healthcare system.
Insurance companies have abused their position for far too long, but they are not the lone abusers of the system. Every year the legal system is used to support fraudulent efforts to extract billions of dollars from the system.
Hospitals are guilty of over billing millions of patients every year. The federal Health Care Financing Administration, which oversees Medicare, is also taking a hard look at hospital over billing because they estimate that the government loses 30 cents to every dollar from fraudulent practices in the medical community. The medicare budget for 2010 is $675 Billion so that is more than $200 billion lost to fraud! Hospitals, doctors and other medical professionals think part of the blame lies with the complexity of the medicare system itself.
It has recently been shown in the death of Michael Jackson how medical practitioners can use their license to support the drug habits of their patients. More people died every year in the USA from prescribed drugs than from illegal street drugs! All of these issues if corrected, would save billions of dollars every year. And this does not begin to deal with how much could be saved if people lived healthier lifestyles. 40% of the American population is now obese. And this 40% of the population uses 40% more medical care than the rest of the population! These figures are staggering, and not one of them will be fixed with a government run health care system. In fact, the likelihood is that a government run system will act as an enabler, perpetuating the problems. One of the biggest concerns is that if we do indeed have a government takeover of the medical insurance system, these problems will just become more deeply buried in bureaucracy and red tape.
The government needs to address ways to control cost, and should not be focusing on moving the system from one set of administrators (the private sector), to another (government run) without fixing the problems. The government's predominant position has been one of taking over the system and not one fixing problems. Whatever the government's reason for this, is also a big concern.
BestHealthcareRates.com advocates affordable individual medical insurance, family health insurance and group medical insurance for all. By eradicating fraudulent practices, rewarding healthy lifestyles choices and ending insurance company denials based on health history. The government's role should be to set the rules and conditions for private enterprise, not to compete with private enterprise.