Re:How to brazenly steal $100B from Medicare and Medicaid
by WalterBright on Thursday March 09, 2023 @01:07PM
(#35084481)
It goes far beyond outright fraud. Frontline did an episode a while back about dental centers being set up to provide free dental care for the poor. The government would reimburse them for the procedures provided.
The dentists would prescribe all sorts of expensive procedures, like root canals, implants, etc., that were unnecessary for the patients, and collect the payments from the government.
Frontline was suitably shocked by this behavior, but what does one expect to happen when the government sets up a machine that dispenses gold coins when the button is pushed? People are gonna push that button till their arm falls off, and then they'll push the button with their nose.
This goes on because nobody in government actually cares about the losses. After all, it's somebody else's money.
In business, when this happens, the business owner does something about it. For example, the cash register was invented by a bar owner who realized that his busy bar was losing money because the bartenders were pocketing most of the revenue.
The dentists would prescribe all sorts of expensive procedures, like root canals, implants, etc., that were unnecessary for the patients, and collect the payments from the government.
Frontline was suitably shocked by this behavior, but what does one expect to happen when the government sets up a machine that dispenses gold coins when the button is pushed? People are gonna push that button till their arm falls off, and then they'll push the button with their nose.
This goes on because nobody in government actually cares about the losses. After all, it's somebody else's money.
In business, when this happens, the business owner does something about it. For example, the cash register was invented by a bar owner who realized that his busy bar was losing money because the bartenders were pocketing most of the revenue.