Posted by Jack
The federal government has failed to properly monitor enrollee eligibility for Obamacare, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). As a result, the government has made billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidy payments to individuals that may have been committing fraud.
“When the government wastes money, it is wasting OUR money. It is cutting OUR pay. It is damaging OUR lives,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “And the Obama administration is treating us with contempt.”
As the report notes, the system used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) relies on data sent by three government agencies – the IRS, SSA, and DHS – to check eligibility for Obamacare. However, the system used by CMS is unable to verify many inconsistencies in the data.
This inability to properly verify enrollment has meant billions of dollars have been sent out to enrollees without verifying whether the applicants were fraudulent. As the report notes:
“According to GAO analysis of CMS data, about 431,000 applications from the 2014 enrollment period, with about $1.7 billion in associated subsidies for 2014, still had unresolved inconsistencies as of April 2015—several months after close of the coverage year.”
While CMS has information that could shed light on fraud, it has not developed any procedure to utilize it. As the report notes:
“CMS foregoes information that could suggest potential program issues or potential vulnerabilities to fraud, as well as information that might be useful for enhancing program management.”
These latest findings should not be surprising. Time and time again, watchdogs have sounded the alarm over Obamacare exchange verification and controls.
And the Obumblecare website is STILL not secure from identity thieves. You’da thought that would’ve been fixed by now.
Enter your info at your own risk!
Jack I’m so glad you had time this morning to post this to the front page.
The problems with the law are many and outweigh whatever positives there may be by miles and miles. We can accommodate those who have benefited from ACA without all of the harm this law has caused, without the fraud and abuse, without the punishing regulations…and the sooner we get it done the better!
Less Government, leave Constitutional freedoms as intended, become more personial responsible, they all equal a better county.
Single payer will resolve all these issues.
Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!
#EnoughIsEnough #FeelTheBern
Single payer is a Utopian fantasy built on the free lunch theory.
Pick pockets and freeloaders love it.
Prove your statement. There is no free lunch. You have not checked out the proposal have you?
Tina do you have medicare? Do you consider it a free lunch?
I do not. The Taxpayers are paying for it, yet they may not have good healthcare.
You loose that argument for not knowing how it works. I will say those who get medicare/medicaid now are fighting against healthcare for others. Hypocrisy at best.
Planned parenthood is the enemy for providing affordable healthcare?
There is no free lunch. SOMEBODY ALWAYS PAYS!
Whether the individual, the taxpayer, “the rich,” or future generations burdened by public debt…SOMEBODY ALWAYS PAYS. The young will pay in lost opportunity and lousy economy if we don;t change direction and enact reforms.
Dewey you do not get what other communicate. I have explained my position and answered your questions on SS and medicare numerous times. Both are forced programs. I was forced into them by the government. I paid all my working life into both programs and for thirty years I have paid the employer portion for myself and for all of my employees. I HAVE PAID…there is no free lunch.
I am part of the big boomer generation. We paid through the nose for our parents Medicare. As we retire the generation that will pay for us is much smaller…and that is a problem for them and for us. The program does not work. It is unsustainable. Both SS and MC add to our debt year after year and that will get much worse with the boomers retiring.
Newsflash: I SUPPORT REFORM OF THESE PROGRAMS.
Newsflash: BERNIE’S PLAN WILL BE MEDICARE ON STEROIDS. The plan’s details do not matter. Single payer is a monopolistic system. That means there will be no real competition and no incentive to keep costs down.
Planned Parenthood is subsidized by the taxpayer with direct transfers of cash and then they serve many medial and medicare patients…more government (taxpayer dollars). Taxpayers pay again to pay the salaries of the bureaucracy that manages these programs.
One of the biggest lies going today is that you can tax the rich and pay for all of these programs. the reason you believe it is because you’re under the impression that enough people make millions of dollars a year to pay for it. The truth is it takes a a very broad and strong middle class to pay for it and even then you still stack up debt.
I don’t lose the argument. It is you who loses the argument because you believe in the free lunch.
No hypocrisy here and NO FREE LUNCH!
A simple answer even a Leftist Lib could understand. Maybe . . . .
Well done!
I do not. I believe in socialism. It works in Europe, and would work here, if the country weren’t full of greedy, selfish, resentful and racist so-and-sos, aka Trump supporters, who are too damned ignorant, and too easily manipulated to act in their own best interests.
Pitiful.
Yep, socialists believe in mediocrity and dependency…cradle to grave dependency. It works only to the degree of survival.
What a lousy substitute the so-called dreamers have for us compared to a robust economy with dynamic growth and opportunity.
Those who prefer to reach for their own dreams, those who prefer a chance to better their own lives, those who prefer to see their kids achieve and inherit from their own creativity and participation should read this article by Larry Kudlow.
Socialism is about being enticed into a trap.
But this “eternal growth” mantra is a fallacy, the road to ruin, particularly environmental ruin.
We’re learning to do a new thing, socialism, that has some hope of providing a sustainable social economy … well, some of us are learning … others of us, apparently, can’t.
A new thing? Get real!
Sustainable social economy? What the he77 does that even mean. When you take the means of production out of the hands of the producers and spend it on social programs there is no “sustainability.” There IS a spiraling downward in the form of diminishing opportunity and growing debt.
There is no evidence that capitalism and growth “ruin” the environment. In fact capitalism has made it possible for the environment to be sustained through innovation and scientific and technological advancement. If you want to see people suffering under social and environmental horrors look at the poor nations with authoritarian governments.
And where did the phrase “eternal growth” come from? Are you getting religious on me?
How about “continual expansion”, like that better? You really so ignorant of the principles of capitalism, and its biggest flaws, which flaws have been steadily mitigated by creeping socialism, lo, these last 200 years.
Abandon the myth … or continue to encourage you leaders to lie to you.
Libby you haven’t yet explained to our readers how socialism works in terms of generating the wealth needed to sustain it. So do tell how raising tax rates on the wealthy will produce a robust economy and create opportunity for the middle class. Tell us all how you will sustain all of those new programs, plus the old programs, and not collapse from enormous debt.
I said we were learning, and we are, and we have no more time for clinging to discredited mythologies.
That continual economic expansion essential to the survival of any capitalist enterprise was long ago shown up for a planet killer … in addition to the people suffering, of course.