Medicare fraud costs CMS billions

I urge extreme caution any time you hear the federal government claiming fraud in Medicare. Not because there is no fraud, but because the feds trot out this old horse every time they need to justify a budget cut. Clinton and Shalala were masters at it. First, they sent auditors to one home care agency everyone knew was "dirty" (and about which the industry had long complained in vain). There they found that 40% of Medicare's payments were for fraudulent claims. No surprise to anyone. But then they painted the entire industry with that 40% brush to justify a massive budget cut, from which the nation's home care network has yet to recover. In short: They lied about fraud to cut the budget. To make matters worse, they created the ironically named Operation Restore Trust, which was little more than a legalized extortion racket. The feds hired bounty hunters (who were painfully ignorant of both Medicare billing and home care) who, in turn, made baseless demands for repayment with the threat that if you tried to stick up for yourself in court, they'd come looking for much, much more. No opportunity to challenge their demands, or to correct their errors, outside of court was given. In short: They invented a Medicare Mob -- "You pay up or we break your legs." Don't say I didn't warn you.