Posted on 01/09/2014 4:34:31 AM PST by iowamark
Federal health officials vowed this week to crack down on illegal immigrants who get Medicare..
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it could save nearly $70 million from 2015 to 2019 by preventing illegal immigrants from taking advantage of Medicare’s prescription drug program or enrolling in Medicare Advantage plans.
“We are proposing to establish U.S. citizenship and lawful presence as an eligibility requirement for enrollment in [Medicare Advantage] and Part D plans,” said a proposed rule posted late Monday.
Sen. Tom Coburn, Congress‘ top waste-watcher, said the agency is making the right move.
“From here, CMS must show they can implement their plans with successful results,” the Oklahoma Republican said. “They also should take the necessary steps to prevent paying taxpayer dollars to dead doctors, doctors with felonies, or dead patients.”
The move raises new questions about the federal government’s eagerness to withhold benefits from illegal immigrants.
President Obama and congressional Democrats agreed not to extend Obamacare benefits to illegal immigrants, but the Internal Revenue Service has repeatedly resisted calls to stop paying a refundable child tax credit to parents who are in the country illegally...
Illegal immigrants generally are prohibited from receiving federal benefits under the 1996 welfare reform law.
But an internal Health and Human Services audit last year found that while CMS has policies to prevent illegal immigrants from getting most Medicare benefits, it didn’t prevent them from taking part in the prescription drug benefit, or Medicare Part D, which was added under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama’s health care law.
The Medicare agency from 2009 to 2011 paid out nearly $30 million in drug benefits to illegal...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
How are they getting on Medicare?
But … but … They’re just here working hard to provide their families with a better life. /sarc/
So the interesting question is, why are the Feds enforcing this law?
Did Obama approve this? If so, why?
until Obama and the democrats drag a few pregnant illegals in front of a camera...
Yeah. Right.
HOW and WHERE do they sign up? What pinheaded bureaucrat ok’s crap like this? Where are the offending locations? Who are the presiding officials at these locations?
My guess is that so many are using Taxpay ID numbers as their social security number which doesn’t require birth certificate.
I’d imagine that SSA collects the 1.45% Medicare charge from their paychecks along with the 6.2% OASDI under FICA. Thus, they pay a pittance for it and are ‘covered’.
Below is just a scintilla of the massive multi-billion healthcare fraud in existing programs......sap-happy O/Care's got huge pots of money and very little oversight...ready and waiting for fraudsters.
============================================
Medicare paid millions to illegal immigrants, dead patients, probe finds
By Stephen Dinan / The Washington Times
Medicare paid $23 million for dead patients in 2011 and $29 million for drug benefits for illegal immigrants from 2009 to 2011, according to a report Thursday from the Health and Human Services inspector general.
The investigators said Medicare has safeguards to try to stop payments to dead patients, but it still ended up sending out the $23 million anyway.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — the same agency that is struggling to fix the broken Obamacare website — acknowledged the problems and said it will try to take steps to fix them.
“We agree that in cases where the information indicates an individual is not lawfully present in the United States, that individual should not be permitted to enroll or to remain enrolled in a Part D plan during the period where he or she is not eligible to receive federal benefits,” Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of CMS, said in response to the report about illegal immigrants getting benefits.
The payouts aren’t large — they amount to just a fraction of a percent of what Medicare pays each year in benefits. Still, the investigators said the agency should take steps to crack down.
In one of its reports the inspector general said 4,139 illegal immigrants were able to make 279,056 drug benefit claims.
The investigators said that while CMS has policies to prevent illegal immigrants from getting most Medicare benefits, it didn’t have such a policy for the prescription drug program, which was added under President George W. Bush and expanded by President Obama’s health law.
As for dead patients collecting benefits, the investigators said the problems were often related to missing or incorrect dates of death.
Dead doctors also were paid $25 million over a three-year period.
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican (a doctor), said the report was worrying because CMS had been warned of the problems five years earlier.“Every individual wrongfully awarded benefits, be it the deceased or undocumented, diverts scarce resources away from those who need it most,” he said.
SOURCE http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/31/medicare-paid-millions-dead-patients-illegals/#ixzz2jK6Gu1dx
========================================
LET'S DO THE MATH 4,139 illegal immigrants were able to make 279,056 drug benefit claims. That’s 67 per immigrant. Are they selling these drugs? Is that where the brand new Escalades are coming from...being driven w/out valid licenses?
Does anyone remember ACORN and its progeny? These community organizing committees exist as arms of the Democratic Communist Party to wring government benefits for the criminal subculture of metropolitan America.
I recently signed up. They ask where you were born and if you are a US citizen. I doubt whether they check the data.
......no mention of the 4 1/2 billion in tax refunds they get illegally yearly?.....but we’ll work on the 70m
This is the same CMS that tells hospitals to charge patients over $100 - for NOTHING. It’s called a facility fee that hospitals charge patients. The facilities are supposed to be for hospitals and for the use of facilities in the hospital (labs, specialists, etc.).
Here’s the problem - hospitals have expanded to include off-site doctors’ offices, labs and anyone associated with the hospital. The finance department submits two bills to Medicare - doctor’s charges and facility fee.
CMS pays on both - one for doctor’s visit and one for the facility fee. When I visit an off-site doctor, I get a bill back with the portion of doctor’s visit that is paid and a surprise.
The Christiana Hospital finance center in Delaware charged me $23 for the facility fee. Medicare paid $24.16 and said the charge should have been $102.34 and that I owed $77.18!
Long story short, CMS refuses to believe that it is an increase, insists that the charge is correct and requires me to pay the increased amount. Naturally, I REFUSE to pay. The matter is in now in collections. Good luck them trying to collect.
So beware of increased charges and facility fees. REFUSE to pay!
Read closely.
That $70 Million is over 4 YEARS.
That amounts to about $17.5 million per year.
With over 50 million illegals in the country that is about 34 cents per illegal.
Hell of a deal!!
Remember all the times,oh illegals cannot get medicare .Illegals are draining this country and very soon we will be even broker.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.