[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 160 (Tuesday, October 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10123-H10124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            MEDICARE REFORM SHOULD ROOT OUT FRAUD AND ABUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have conducted numerous town 
meetings and hearings in my district on Medicare. As my friend, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin], just said, unfortunately, 
hearings have not taken place in this institution in this body for the 
public to hear them.
  But at these hearings which I have conducted, and in town meetings, I 
have heard over and over again people's anger about the $270 billion in 
Medicare cuts in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest 
citizens in this country, the people who need them the least.
  But what also concerns me and what troubles me is something else that 
I hear at these hearings, these town meetings, and that is people 
believe there is a good deal of fraud in the Medicare system. That 
fraud is something we have to aggressively pursue and prosecute and 
root out and do something about.
  That is why it particularly troubles me and concerned me to see an 
article in USA Today, an editorial on Friday, and the headline reads, 
``Medicare Reform Invites Doctors To Bend the Rules. Easing Limits on 
Physicians' Self-Referral Is Bound To Cost the Medicare Program 
Billions of Dollars That It Can't Afford.''

  USA Today goes on to say:

       No wonder the American Medical Association has signed on to 
     Medicare reform, with the deal that they made with Republican 
     leadership. The Republican Medicare bill actually promotes 
     fraud, waste and abuse in several areas, particularly in its 
     weakening of the ban on physician referral of Medicare and 
     Medicaid patients for tests and treatment in places where the 
     doctor has a financial interest.

  Another newspaper talking about this agreement made between 
Republican leadership and the American Medical Association says:

       Regrettably the Speaker's concessions made an already bad 
     Medicare bill substantially worse. The Gingrich bill was 
     never designed to give the elderly high-quality health care. 
     It is less likely to do so now.

  Unfortunately, this piece of legislation, this Medicare bill which 
the American people have not been able to find out much about, because 
there have not been hearings in this institution, that Gingrich 
Medicare bill eliminates fraud by legalizing it. It simply makes things 
legal that were not legal before. It encourages more fraud, instead of 
less.
  Not too long ago, about a week ago, in the Committee on Commerce, a 
committee on which I sit, the committee that heard the Medicare and 
Medicaid bills. Rather, did not really hear them, because we were not 
allowed to have hearings, but a committee that discussed Medicare and 
Medicaid and allowed amendments and we talked about the bill, my 
colleague, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak], offered a 
substitute bill that would have, instead of cutting $270 billion in 
Medicare in order to give tax breaks to the wealthiest citizens in this 
country, would have gone directly after fraud and abuse in the Medicare 
program.
  Unfortunately the chairman of the committee ruled the Stupak 
substitute out of order. We were not able to debate this or discuss 
this and we were not allowed to vote for a bill, instead of $270 
billion in cuts to Medicare beneficiaries and to give tax breaks to the 
wealthiest citizen, instead it would have devoted resources to rooting 
out fraud.

                              {time}  1830

  The Office of Inspector General reports that every year for every $1 
spent on going after fraud and investigators and inspectors and 
prosecutors, that $80 is recovered that can go back into the Medicare 
system. So why are we cutting $270 billion out of Medicare to pay for 
tax breaks for the wealthy and why are we cutting back on the enforcers 
and the investigators and the prosecutors and the people that for every 
dollar spent can recover $80?
  I think it goes back to that editorial in USA Today about the 
arrangement that the American Medical Association made with the 
Republican leadership in this House. It is troubling to me that we 
could save much more than even the trustees said. They said that we 
need to cut $89 billion in order to keep Medicare strong for the next 
decade or 

[[Page H 10124]]
so. We are saying that pursuing fraud the way that we can can save 
almost $100 billion. The inspector general says that 10 percent of 
Medicare moneys are fraudulent, that over the space of the next 7 
years, $200 billion will be lost to fraud. If we can go after that 
fraud, whether it is durable medical equipment reform, whether it is 
putting in civil penalties for kickbacks, whether it is strengthening 
conflict of interest rules, whether it is grand jury disclosure, 
increased subpoena authority, all these together, if we can only save 
half, if we can only recover half of the fraud in the Medicare system, 
we will have more than enough to meet the trustees' recommendation, to 
keep Medicare strong for the next 10 years.
   Mr. Speaker, it simply does not make sense to make these cuts in 
Medicare to give tax breaks to the wealthy. We should go after fraud 
aggressively. We should crack down on fraud, not cut senior citizens' 
ability to get health care.

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