Medicare Fraud and Healthcare Reform

Only a bunch of politicians could come up with this one. According to a report from the White House, the government paid over $98 billion in improper payments to people, firms and contractors in fiscal 2009. More than half, approximately $55 billion, of that was in payments related to medicare/medicaid programs. Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters that is why we need healthcare reform.

I guess the logic goes like this-people cheat the system (ok maybe some are not intentional, but come on $55 B-there is some cheating going on), the HUGE bureaucracy that is supposed to manage the system doesn't stop the cheating, so what we need is a HUGER bureaucracy because that's going to solve the problem.

We are from the government and we are here to help!