Archive for the ‘corruption’ Category
Fighting Fraud In Medicare
Sep16
By John Feehery
“In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
That was Thomas Hobbes, who argued that implicit in civil society is a social contract that called for a strong government presence in regulating conduct. In Mr. Hobbes time, the king was the ultimate sovereign. These days, you could argue that the sovereign is the Federal government as set out by the Constitution.
Hobbes understood that the nature of man, without that social contract, would descend into chaos and ultimately darkness. In other words, without strong laws, people cheat, lie and steal.
I say this as a means of introduction to a bipartisan proposal by Jim Gerlach, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, to get rid of fraud in Medicare. It is a modest proposal that could save tens of billions of dollars in government spending.
The most amazing thing about the proposal is that it hasn’t been implemented yet. The proposal would create a common access card that would store and secure a Medicare beneficiary’s personal information electronically on a computer chip. As a result, it would require both beneficiaries and providers to confirm receipt of services at the time services are rendered thereby preventing fraudulent claims. In sum, identity verification will prevent fraud among beneficiaries and providers, and legitimize Medicare claims. With more than $60 billion in fraud and abuse in the Medicare program annually, this proposal is long overdue. It would also protect senior citizens, who tend to be the most vulnerable to fraud.
A similar program exists at the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD has issued over 20 million secure smart cards or Common Access Card to authenticate and verify users for access to programs and facilities. To date, DoD reports not a single Common Access Card has been counterfeited.
For the life of me, I don’t know why we can’t get moving on this proposal. American Express and Visa have both figured out how to instantly track down waste, fraud and abuse. We have the technical capabilities to do the same with Medicare. We should go ahead and pass this legislation.
The Limits of Libertarianism
Jul29
By John Feehery
I like to call myself a Libertarian, but I am really not.
I don’t really want government to disappear. While I read The Fountainhead in college, and I admit I have found it to be influential in my life, I think Ayn Rand was a little kooky and her objectivism philosophy is unworkable in the real world.
My brother, the Tea Partier is a Libertarian. He wants government to shrink dramatically. He wants police forces to be shrunk, he wants teacher’s pensions cut, he wants most regulatory bodies eliminated. He finds government to be oppressive and he wants it to be gone.
He also believes that for the last forty-five years, America has been living a lie. He hates the military industrial complex, he hates the Federal Reserve, he wants to go back to a Gold Standard. He thinks we should never
have gone into Iraq and believes that the Soviet Union would have fallen without the Reagan buildup, and he believes that the banking system in this country is essentially corrupt.
He also finds Michele Bachmann to be appealing and he appreciates what Joe Walsh is doing in stopping the debt limit extension.
While he likes John Boehner, he thinks he is a traditional Republican, and he believes that the traditional, big business Republican party should go the way of the dodo bird.
My brother would fit in nicely with the Tea Party in Washington, and while I love my brother, he is profoundly wrong about the role of government in our society.
Getting rid of government would be a disaster for this country and the world.
Going back to the Gold Standard and getting rid of the Federal Reserve would immediately put us into a deep depression.
Sharply cutting back our national defenses would make us extraordinarily vulnerable to terrorist attacks and make each one of us less secure.
Pulling back from the rest of the globe would make the world much less stable, and increase the likelihood of major and catastrophic conflicts.
Getting rid of regulators of food safety and drug safety would increase the chances of accidental deaths for countless Americans.
Getting rid of Medicare and Social Security would immediately put millions of elderly Americans into poverty.
I call myself a Libertarian because I want smarter government that expands freedoms. I think we should regulate the sale of pot, and get more tax money. I think we should regulate Internet poker and then get the tax revenue. That means more government, not less.
A well-run government promotes commercial activity, provides stability to the market place, protects intellectual property, punishes bad actors and corruption, and pays its bills.
Libertarians, especially Tea Party libertarians, fundamentally disagree with Republicans about the role of government. That doesn’t make them bad people. But it does mean that the Tea Party can’t coexist within the GOP and with establishment Republicans. The differences between the two are not trivial and they can’t be ignored for very much longer.
