[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 15, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H4438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PAYMENTS TO MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES

  (Mr. MURPHY of New York asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. MURPHY of New York. Today we're seeing the implementation of one 
of the things in the health care reform bill: payments of $250 to help 
our seniors with the doughnut hole coverage. One of the things that's 
also going on that most Americans don't know about is fundamental 
reforms with respect to waste and fraud in the Medicare system. Our 
efforts on that front have been dramatically improved by things that 
were in the health care bill that was passed earlier this year, giving 
Medicare the power to do commonsense things that any small business in 
America would do, do a better job of checking new providers as they 
come into Medicare, do a better job of putting people on probation and 
checking up on them in that first year to make sure they are not 
abusing our system.
  There is a rampant problem with waste, fraud and abuse in our 
Medicare system. The health care bill we passed earlier this year is 
making steps to bring that into check. Today we had a hearing here in 
Congress about other things that we can do. And I testified about my 
legislation to put more tools in the hands of our law enforcement 
professionals and CMS to cut down on the waste and fraud in Medicare. I 
look forward to continuing to work on this and making sure that we use 
the dollars in Medicare to provide health benefits to our seniors, not 
allow criminals to run rampant.

                          ____________________