Internet sale price for a standard back brace: $99.99.
What Medicare pays for the item: $900-plus.
A federal report released Wednesday offers a look at how wasteful spending drives up health care costs as investigators found that Medicare paid $919 on average for back braces that cost suppliers an average of $191 each...
It's estimated that the health care system squanders $750 billion a year, about 30 cents of every medical dollar, through unneeded care, wasteful spending and fraud. Part of the problem is prices can vary widely depending on who's paying the bill. Prices that government programs pay can be way off the mark. http://charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=....org%3E&ps=1011
This is but one government program and illustrates one of the elements of our government that frustrates and angers me beyond even other examples of incompetency. Our politicians right now are planning on raising our taxes but has anyone ever heard any of those WA clowns instead talk about the waste and fraud attendant on government spending? I once saw an estimate that at least 1 out every 100 federal dollars goes to fraud and waste. It's probably higher, much higher. But nobody in WA seems to give a damn. Instead they focus their attention on how much to raise taxes on the productive sector. That just stinks.
Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #1Internet sale price for a standard back brace: $99.99.
What Medicare pays for the item: $900-plus.
A federal report released Wednesday offers a look at how wasteful spending drives up health care costs as investigators found that Medicare paid $919 on average for back braces that cost suppliers an average of $191 each...
It's estimated that the health care system squanders $750 billion a year, about 30 cents of every medical dollar, through unneeded care, wasteful spending and fraud. Part of the problem is prices can vary widely depending on who's paying the bill. Prices that government programs pay can be way off the mark. http://charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=....org%3E&ps=1011
This is but one government program and illustrates one of the elements of our government that frustrates and angers me beyond even other examples of incompetency. Our politicians right now are planning on raising our taxes but has anyone ever heard any of those WA clowns instead talk about the waste and fraud attendant on government spending? I once saw an estimate that at least 1 out every 100 federal dollars goes to fraud and waste. It's probably higher, much higher. But nobody in WA seems to give a damn. Instead they focus their attention on how much to raise taxes on the productive sector. That just stinks.
This will tick you off even more. An offer by IBM to remove blatant fraud for free was turned down twice. Blatant fraud includes such things as unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital — on and on)
Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #1Internet sale price for a standard back brace: $99.99.
What Medicare pays for the item: $900-plus.
A federal report released Wednesday offers a look at how wasteful spending drives up health care costs as investigators found that Medicare paid $919 on average for back braces that cost suppliers an average of $191 each...
It's estimated that the health care system squanders $750 billion a year, about 30 cents of every medical dollar, through unneeded care, wasteful spending and fraud. Part of the problem is prices can vary widely depending on who's paying the bill. Prices that government programs pay can be way off the mark. http://charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=....org%3E&ps=1011
This is but one government program and illustrates one of the elements of our government that frustrates and angers me beyond even other examples of incompetency. Our politicians right now are planning on raising our taxes but has anyone ever heard any of those WA clowns instead talk about the waste and fraud attendant on government spending? I once saw an estimate that at least 1 out every 100 federal dollars goes to fraud and waste. It's probably higher, much higher. But nobody in WA seems to give a damn. Instead they focus their attention on how much to raise taxes on the productive sector. That just stinks.
This will tick you off even more. An offer by IBM to remove blatant fraud for free was turned down twice. Blatant fraud includes such things as unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital — on and on)
This fraudulent "overspending" is endemic to anything that government gets its dirty hands on. Government involvement in "healthcare" and "insurance" is a large part of what created the so called "crisis" that government is going to worsen by becoming almost universally involved.