It isn’t hard to guess where it starts, where the sewer line for transportation of the waste begins and stops for the biggest portion of the waste falling to the bottom of the scat pond, and why it continues year after year.
No idea for the answer? Really? Then try the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services Department led by Secretary Katherine Sebilius. Read about it at the Brietbart piece found below and find examples of smaller waste and fraud at the Related Articles following the main story:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimated that in 2013 it improperly spent about $65 billion in taxpayer funds through waste, errors, and fraud, a figure that was primarily fueled by an estimated $60 billion in overpayments to Medicare and Medicaid.
According to the HHS FY 2013 financial report released in mid-December, last year HHS improperly spent a total of $65.3 billion under all its programs, an increase from the $64.8 billion misspent in 2012.
Erroneous payments by Medicare increased by almost 12 percent, from around $44.3 billion in 2012 to almost $49.9 billion in 2013. That means that last year, nearly $1 out of every $10 spent on Medicare beneficiaries was doled out by mistake.
Conversely, Medicaid saw a substantial decrease in payment errors of about 25 percent, down from about $19.2 billion in 2012 to $14.4 billion in 2013.
HHS made an estimated $64.3 billion in erroneous payments last year under Medicare and Medicaid combined, an increase from the $63.5 billion in 2012.
The majority of improper or mistaken payments in 2013 came in the form of overpayments. Improper payments were broken down by overpayments and underpayments in the HHS financial document.
All in all, in 2013 HHS overpaid a total of $60.6 billion; that is more than 90 percent of the $65.3 billion in improperly spent taxpayer funds for last year.
Of the $64.3 billion in improper payments just accounting for Medicare and Medicaid last year, $59.6 billion were overpayments, including $45.7 billion spent by Medicare and $13.9 billion by Medicaid.
To put it in perspective, the estimated $60 billion in Medicare and Medicaid overpayments made in 2013 are about three times the expected $20 billion in deficit reduction under the budget deal struck by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his Senate counterpart Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).
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