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Hidden Entitlements
The new Administration in Washington seems to have one main goal, that is not hidden! It appears they want to do away with all entitlement programs, or send them back to the state level and let the states Governors control and regulate them. No money, no entitlements, sounds like a simple solution.
The popular rhetoric for years now has been to stop the abuse of entitlement programs. Many politicians have been elected standing on that platform. It appears that most abuse is not hidden or very hard to find.
The main problem, there is a lot of abuse. Most not done by individuals, but you do see it and you hear people talk about abusing programs. Some almost seem proud of the fact that they did it to the government. People today seem to be more inclined to not give accurate information when applying for entitlement programs, that is cheating. That is just the tip of the big fraud wave, the big fish swim under.
There is a growing bipartisan consensus that the nations indebtedness is unsustainable, not from twenty years of unfunded wars, that just added to it. The plan is for the largest tax cut in history and restructuring the Federal Income Tax. Not a prudent thing to do with looming unsustainable debt?
Something has to be done to start controlling the Nation’s debt. The fearless and wise lawmakers will do the natural thing, go after all of the entitlement programs. How they go about lowering the costs of all these different programs is anybody’s guess. They are looking at the individual as the cause.
They’re going to have to get their heads together and face reality, the controls that they put on the systems simply do not work. Hopefully the new computer age will help them control the future costs of all entitlement programs, by catching more fraud that has been easily hidden in the past.
The politicians in power now, who are steering our ship of State through these murky, muddled, waters have been vowing to do away with that terrible, Affordable Health Care Program for years. They have no plan of their own yet, but they’re sure they have to do away with the healthcare system that we now have in place. The first thing they should do is repeal Medicare Part D, ‘that they created.’ It has given drug companies billions, maybe trillions of dollars in extra profits, while robbing those needing medication. It also hurt the future of Medicare, that no doubt was their goal.
One of the first things they better look into, is all of the for-profit groups, with their hands grabbing up all the health care money, causing premium rates to become out of sight. Hospitals, Senior Care Facilities, drugs, anything to do with medical care. Their bottom line is like anybody else on Wall Street, the investors want a big return on their money. There is no way this Nation can have Affordable Health Care if we have investors demanding xxxxxxxxxx number of dollars in profit each quarter.
Here is a real life example: A small town, Midwestern Senior Care Center charged an insurance company $11,500.00 for a person staying there for 30 days, in a semi-private room. That person was only allowed 20 days worth of insurance coverage, so he had to pay another $1,600 out of his own pocket. The insurance company no doubt paid a large portion of that $11,500.00. This was for a 30 day, semi-private stay! There is something wrong with this picture, that would be $138,000.00 for a year! That is why insurance rates are so damn high. Insurance companies are tired of being robbed, so are the policy holders.
I have to wonder, if that person would have been on Medicaid, would the government have paid that same amount? This crap went on long before the so called GOP invented “Obama Care”!
The same people who deregulated the price controls on drugs in the middle of the night, now want to turn complete control of healthcare over to for-profit organizations who have very little concern for the individual citizen.
“In 2003, a Republican-majority Congress created Medicare Part D, which prevented Medicare the country’s largest single-payer health care system from negotiating drug prices. In effect, drug manufacturers in the US were allowed to set their own prices resulting in the unregulated pricing variation for prescription drugs. “However, the government does employ drug pricing strategies for other smaller government health programs like the Veterans Health Administration, the Department of Defense.”
The political powers that rule, repay those who control the hidden fortunes, they now want a new health care system for those who still have some money left. Everyone has to be in any system for it to work. The law makers better soon learn that.
“Just How Wrong Is Conventional Wisdom About Government Fraud?”
“Entitlement programs, from food stamps to Medicare, don’t see unusually high cheating rates — and the culprits are usually managers and executives, not “welfare queens.
“Though some might still deny it, there is growing bipartisan belief that our nation’s level of indebtedness is unsustainable. How we reduce the debt burden is another matter; this is where political knives are sharpened. Yet there is one uncontroversial issue that could result in dramatic savings and, interestingly is almost never mentioned: fraud, fraud in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) manages cash benefits for people with disabilities accounting for approximately $150 billion. There are two programs in this category, Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the former for workers with disabilities including families.”
“Remarkably the GAO analysis of SSA and federal salary data found that 1,500 federal civilian employees are receiving funds improperly to the tune of $1.7 million monthly or $20.4 million annually. This is approximately two percent of SSA fraud cases which demonstrates the magnitude of the problem. In fact, there are literally hundreds of SSI recipients who receive their checks in Mexico City, to cite one example, who haven’t resided in the United States in years and who never contributed a dime to the Social Security agency.
The Government Accountability Office recently announced it found $137 billion in improper payments in 2015, an increase of $31 billion in just two years.
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