OK, so I worded my blogpost headline to increase the number of hits it gets. Let me repeat it:
"Cheating Doctors Screw Seniors, Taxpayers out of $11 Billion."
But that is what the Washington Post says September 16 in a scathing review of scathing research by a left-wing journalism organization called the Center for Public Integrity.
(I know, I know; saying "left wing journalism organization" is redundant.)
$11 billion seems to be a magic number relative to Medicare this weekend; that's the same number the Obama administration's Office of Management Budget is suppoedly saying sequestration will cost Medicare doctors and providers next year. Only in the case of the scathing Center for Public Integrity research, the $11 billion was
- Allegedly stolen over a period of 10 years, not one year (So is that three tenths of a percent or three one hundredths of a percent? I can never get those zeros right when we're talking trillions.)
- Not all related to doctor fees (if it even happened, which the Center for Public Integrity couldn't say with any integrity)
- Not even likely fraud according to Dr. Donald Berwick (who you won't find me defending very often)
Hey everyone is against fraud. But after WaPo carries on about this subject for 1000 words (the Center for Public Integrity research drones on for thousands of words and I didn't finish it), the paper says the problem is so infintesimal (must be three one hundredths of a percent) that it would cost more to go looking for it than could be "saved." If it were illegal. And if it did involve doctors.
Boy I wish they would start employing people who understand numbers to write left-wing news articles (there I go with the redundancy again).
-- Dennis Byron
NOTE: As with almost all left-wing journalism Medicare fraud articles, this alleged theft only applies to "Democratic Party" Fee for Service (FFS) Medicare, "Medicare as we know it," Medicare Parts A and B, government-run Medicare, the public Medicare option, "good Medicare." "Republican-party" capitated Medicare, Medicare run by greedy blood-sucking private insuance companies, Medicare Parts C (Medicare Advantage) and D, market-based Medicare, or "bad Medicare" does not have this fraud problem to any great degree.
