Fraud, Health Insurance, and Imported Prescription Drugs -- Tough Pills to Swallow Today

Makes You Sick Enough to Need Medicaid. The General Accountability Office reports widespread fraud in the Medicaid system—and that Washington isn’t doing enough to stop it. Uncle Sam spends $300 billion of your tax dollars every year to pay for Medicaid. Some of the abuses the GAO found include:

• 15 labs billing Medicaid for tests doctors never ordered
• An eyeglass store billing falsely billing Medicaid for more than 59,000 pairs of eyeglasses in six years

The GAO report says the fraud is widespread, but Washington only recovers about $1 billion a year in Medicaid fraud. By comparison, Washington recovered $43 billion in Medicare fraud in 2001.

Health Insurance Costs Injuring Job Prospects. Rising health insurance costs are blamed for much of the sluggish job growth. Employers spend $3,000 per employee on average for health care. Health insurance costs are rising at an annually adjusted rate of 8.1% this year. That cost is being driven by rising health care costs, such as expensive new drugs and their expensive new advertising campaigns. (NYT)

Flip Flop? President Bush, a long time opponent of importing cheap prescription drugs into the US, sounds as if he’s changing his stand. “If it’s safe, it makes sense,” the President now says. Could he have seen this week’s poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation (3rd Item) showing that 80% of seniors like the idea of buying cheaper drugs from other countries. (CNN)