[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 76 (Tuesday, May 20, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3187-S3191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
______
By Ms. MURKOWSKI:
S. 2357. A bill to provide for improvements in the consistency of
data collection, reporting, and assessment in connection with the
suicide prevention efforts of the Department of Defense; to the
Committee on Armed Services.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President I have come to the floor today to
introduce a piece of legislation that I feel is timely and critically
necessary, the Department of Defense Suicide Tracking Act of 2014. As
our Nation winds down involvement in the longest war in our history, it
is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the men and women who have
carried the burden of combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of
the world, as well as their family members, are taken care of to the
fullest extent possible. That means we must address the tragic suicide
epidemic in our military. While the services have focused on this
problem for years, there still appears to be significant gaps,
especially in reserve component and dependent tracking and analysis.
This is a complex issue with no obvious solutions, but I intend to work
with my colleagues in the Senate to develop comprehensive, meaningful
ways to address this problem.
The DoD recently released its 2012 DoD Suicide Event Report, which
concluded that there were a total of 319 active component suicides and
203 reserve
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component suicides in 2012. That equates to 22.7 and 24.2 for every
100,000 service members, respectively. Additionally, there were a total
of 841 attempted suicides in 2012. While preliminary data suggests that
2013 had an 18 percent drop in suicides, this is still a significant
and tragic problem in the military that we need to tackle head-on. The
report doesn't include any data for dependent suicide or attempted
suicide, because currently only the U.S. Army even tries to track that
information, so there is no comprehensive assessment of how years of
combat and readiness have impacted military dependents in that way.
The purpose of the DoD Suicide Tracking Act is to establish programs
to consistently track and analyze information regarding suicides
involving members of the reserve components and dependents of regular
and reserve component members. Specifically, the bill would improve
consistency in reserve component suicide prevention and resiliency
programs by requiring the Secretary of Defense to develop a standard
method for collecting, reporting, and assessing suicide data and
suicide attempt data involving members of the National Guard and
Reserves. Alaskans are extremely proud of the contributions of our
National Guard and Reserve members, both home and abroad. They have
endured the stress of readiness, deployments and combat like the active
component, making us all very proud. As such, it is time that we ensure
the Department of Defense is tracking and addressing their mental well-
being just like every other military member.
According to an annual survey by the Blue Star Families military
family advocacy group, of 5,100 military family members surveyed in
2012, 9 percent of military spouses reported that they had considered
suicide. Of those, nearly a quarter said they had not sought help. This
bill would establish a Department of Defense suicide prevention program
for military dependents that requires each service to implement
programs to track, report and analyze information regarding suicides.
We often talk about the burden placed on military family members, but
when it comes to suicide we have simply cut them out of the
conversation. This bill would ensure the DoD finally focuses on the
hardship and emotional stress born by military dependents and keeps
them in the picture when evaluating the problem and working towards a
solution. Our military family members have endured countless
deployments, cared for injured service members, and picked up the
pieces when heroes have made the ultimate sacrifice. I intend to make
sure our government cares for them and gives them options beyond
suicide to recover from their pain and emotional stress.
Suicide among the active military, reserve and veteran populations
continues to be a problem that doesn't appear to be improving. Sadly,
the problem will likely get worse before it improves as the war in
Afghanistan winds down and the services downsize, sending veterans with
complex mental issues into the private sector without the military for
support. That is why we need to improve our efforts now to proactively
identify and care for these service members and their families as soon
as possible and with the full resourcing of the Department of Defense.
Our military men and women, and their families, have endured years of
conflict across the world. They embody the proud tradition of selfless
service to our Nation and I cannot thank them enough for everything
they do. I call on all of my colleagues in the Senate to help those who
have dedicated their lives to helping others and who, day in and day
out, make the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our freedoms.
I would like to thank Representative Niki Tsongas for her leadership
on this issue and introduction of the House companion bill, H.R. 4504.
______
By Mr. LEVIN (for himself, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr.
Cardin, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Johnson of South Dakota,
Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Kaine, Ms. Hirono, Mr. King, Ms. Stabenow,
Mr. Schatz, Ms. Warren, Mr. Reed, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Franken, Mr.
Durbin, Mr. Walsh, and Ms. Klobuchar):
S. 2360. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify
the rules relating to inverted corporations; to the Committee on
Finance.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, along with 16 cosponsors, I have introduced
and am introducing today the Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2014.
This legislation is designed to address a loophole which, unless we
close it, will be used to unleash a flood of corporate tax avoidance
that threatens to shove billions of dollars in tax burden from
profitable multinational corporations onto the backs of their American
competitors and other American taxpayers.
The issue we seek to address is known technically as corporate
inversion. The details of inversion sound complex, but the principle is
not. Inversion means avoiding potentially billions of dollars of U.S.
taxes by changing a corporation's address for tax purposes to an
offshore location. What we have is a tax avoidance scheme, an enormous
loophole that allows companies to avoid billions in taxes without any
significant change in where they operate, where their profits are
generated, or where the location is of the executives who manage and
control these corporations.
A recent prominent example involves Pfizer, a U.S. drug company, and
AstroZeneca, a U.K.-based company. This proposed corporate takeover,
which Pfizer makes abundantly clear is all about avoiding U.S. taxes,
has gotten a lot of attention, and for good reason. It would cost the
United States about $1 billion a year in tax revenue. But this is not
just about two companies. This is not just about one merger, even a
merger that could shove billions of dollars of tax burden on other U.S.
taxpayers. The Pfizer-AstroZeneca deal is the latest example of abusive
inversion deals. You cannot pick up a newspaper's business section
these days without reading about what Reuters calls ``a wave of tax-
driven overseas deal-making.'' Some companies that believe they are
meeting their tax obligations are under competitive pressure to invert.
It is clear dozens, perhaps scores, of companies are preparing to file
their change-of-address cards and in doing so avoid billions in U.S.
taxes. That burden doesn't just go away. Either our remaining
constituents must pick up the tab or the loss of Treasury revenue adds
to the Federal deficit.
We tightened the rules regarding inversion schemes in 2004, and we
did so promptly and on a bipartisan basis, but recent events show an
enormous loophole remains, and so our bill seeks to address that
loophole, and I hope once again we can do so promptly and on a
bipartisan basis.
Essentially the problem we have today is that a U.S.-based
multinational can file a change-of-address card with the IRS simply by
acquiring an offshore company that is much smaller than the U.S.
company. Our bill would ensure that any inversion would meet a much
more stringent test.
Under current law, companies can pull off an inversion with a
fraction of their stock, just over 20 percent, in the hands of the new
stockholders overseas. Our bill would raise that threshold to 50
percent or more. In addition, it would stop tax-avoiding inversions in
cases where management and control remain in the United States.
President Obama's 2014 budget included a similar proposal which one
expert told the New York Times ``essentially eliminates inversions as
we know them.''
Our bill provides for a 2-year moratorium of tax avoidance through
the use of inversions. Why a 2-year moratorium? This is in response to
a number of our colleagues who say this is an issue which should wait
for comprehensive tax reform. We all believe in comprehensive tax
reform--or most of us do--but it is going to take time and it is
uncertain. These corporate inversions represent an immediate threat.
Our Treasury is bleeding from these inversions and from other loopholes
which corporations use to avoid paying taxes. This bill is first aid
for the Tax Code. A 2-year moratorium on inversions that do not meet
our tougher standard stops the bleeding while we debate the
comprehensive tax reform that most of us believe is desirable.
As of this moment, however, there is no comprehensive tax reform
legislation pending in either Chamber of Congress. There is no debate
scheduled.
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There is, in fact, not a single comprehensive tax reform proposal that
has been formally introduced as legislation. That is not because no one
in Congress cares about tax reform; nearly everybody does. But broadly
reforming taxes is a complicated and time-consuming process.
But we simply cannot wait. Multinationals are exploiting this
loophole today. Meanwhile, hard-working American taxpayers and small
business owners and even large corporations that have to compete with
the tax avoiders but believe that inversion is wrong for their
companies and for America see their tax burden rise while our national
debt grows. How do we look them in the eye and say, ``We had a way to
halt this gimmick, but we decided to wait for comprehensive reform that
may or may not ever materialize?''
This is similar to what Congress did on a bipartisan basis a decade
ago. Then Senators Baucus and Grassley jointly declared they were
working on legislation to stop abusive tax inversions. The bill, along
with Chairman Wyden's announcement 2 weeks ago, should make clear to
companies that considering tax inversion is now a mistake, because they
are now on notice that it is not going to gain anything if a bill that
prohibits tax avoidance through tax inversion passes, because the
chairman of the Finance Committee has made it clear such a bill is
going to be effective as of May 8 of this year, regardless of when the
bill passes.
So companies are on notice. There is no use rushing to the door to
invert, or leaving the country to invert. It won't do them any good if
the Finance Committee chairman has his way with either of these bills
or other bills that set an appropriate date, such as May 8, to pass the
Congress.
These multinational companies benefit from the safety and security
the U.S. Government provides. Our troops protect them. Our intellectual
property rights protections allow them to profit from their innovation.
They benefit from federally funded research. They claim tax subsidies
for their research and development. They raise capital in U.S.
securities markets that are the envy of the world, thanks to the rule
of law this government protects.
In the last 4 years, one of the companies at the center of this
debate, Pfizer, received more than $4.4 billion in taxpayer money for
federal contracts. Last month the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention awarded Pfizer a $1.1 billion contract.
Yet that company and others are now poised to shortchange Uncle Sam
by billions of dollars simply by changing their address for tax
purposes. I am sure most of our constituents wish they could do that.
Michigan taxpayers cannot reduce their tax bill with the stroke of a
pen. Michigan small businesses cannot pretend they are based offshore
for tax purposes. There is no pretense that any of these corporate
inversions make sense from any standpoint other than avoiding U.S.
taxes. That is their motivation and these companies aren't shy about
saying so. They will continue to operate in the United States. The
executives who manage them will continue to live and work in the United
States. They will live under the umbrella of protection that our men
and women in uniform provide, at the same time that we are cutting
support to those same men and women because of the deficit these tax
avoidance schemes have helped to create.
Few even try to defend these inversions on principle. They are simply
tax avoidance. Even the corporate executives who engineer them make
little pretense as to any other purpose. So let us reform the Tax Code,
yes. But while we craft and debate that reform, let us stop these
transactions that add massively to our deficit and to the burden
America's working families and small businesses must carry.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2360
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Stop Corporate Inversions
Act of 2014''.
SEC. 2. MODIFICATIONS TO RULES RELATING TO INVERTED
CORPORATIONS.
(a) In General.--Subsection (b) of section 7874 of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended to read as follows:
``(b) Inverted Corporations Treated as Domestic
Corporations.--
``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding section 7701(a)(4), a
foreign corporation shall be treated for purposes of this
title as a domestic corporation if--
``(A) such corporation would be a surrogate foreign
corporation if subsection (a)(2) were applied by substituting
`80 percent' for `60 percent', or
``(B) such corporation is an inverted domestic corporation.
``(2) Inverted domestic corporation.--For purposes of this
subsection, a foreign corporation shall be treated as an
inverted domestic corporation if, pursuant to a plan (or a
series of related transactions)--
``(A) the entity completes after May 8, 2014, and before
May 9, 2016, the direct or indirect acquisition of--
``(i) substantially all of the properties held directly or
indirectly by a domestic corporation, or
``(ii) substantially all of the assets of, or substantially
all of the properties constituting a trade or business of, a
domestic partnership, and
``(B) after the acquisition, either--
``(i) more than 50 percent of the stock (by vote or value)
of the entity is held--
``(I) in the case of an acquisition with respect to a
domestic corporation, by former shareholders of the domestic
corporation by reason of holding stock in the domestic
corporation, or
``(II) in the case of an acquisition with respect to a
domestic partnership, by former partners of the domestic
partnership by reason of holding a capital or profits
interest in the domestic partnership, or
``(ii) the management and control of the expanded
affiliated group which includes the entity occurs, directly
or indirectly, primarily within the United States, and such
expanded affiliated group has significant domestic business
activities.
``(3) Exception for corporations with substantial business
activities in foreign country of organization.--A foreign
corporation described in paragraph (2) shall not be treated
as an inverted domestic corporation if after the acquisition
the expanded affiliated group which includes the entity has
substantial business activities in the foreign country in
which or under the law of which the entity is created or
organized when compared to the total business activities of
such expanded affiliated group. For purposes of subsection
(a)(2)(B)(iii) and the preceding sentence, the term
`substantial business activities' shall have the meaning
given such term under regulations in effect on May 8, 2014,
except that the Secretary may issue regulations increasing
the threshold percent in any of the tests under such
regulations for determining if business activities constitute
substantial business activities for purposes of this
paragraph.
``(4) Management and control.--For purposes of paragraph
(2)(B)(ii)--
``(A) In general.--The Secretary shall prescribe
regulations for purposes of determining cases in which the
management and control of an expanded affiliated group is to
be treated as occurring, directly or indirectly, primarily
within the United States. The regulations prescribed under
the preceding sentence shall apply to periods after May 8,
2014.
``(B) Executive officers and senior management.--Such
regulations shall provide that the management and control of
an expanded affiliated group shall be treated as occurring,
directly or indirectly, primarily within the United States if
substantially all of the executive officers and senior
management of the expanded affiliated group who exercise day-
to-day responsibility for making decisions involving
strategic, financial, and operational policies of the
expanded affiliated group are based or primarily located
within the United States. Individuals who in fact exercise
such day-to-day responsibilities shall be treated as
executive officers and senior management regardless of their
title.
``(5) Significant domestic business activities.--For
purposes of paragraph (2)(B)(ii), an expanded affiliated
group has significant domestic business activities if at
least 25 percent of--
``(A) the employees of the group are based in the United
States,
``(B) the employee compensation incurred by the group is
incurred with respect to employees based in the United
States,
``(C) the assets of the group are located in the United
States, or
``(D) the income of the group is derived in the United
States,
determined in the same manner as such determinations are made
for purposes of determining substantial business activities
under regulations referred to in paragraph (3) as in effect
on May 8, 2014, but applied by treating all references in
such regulations to `foreign country' and `relevant foreign
country' as references to `the United States'. The Secretary
may issue regulations decreasing the threshold percent in any
of the tests under such regulations for determining if
business activities constitute significant domestic business
activities for purposes of this paragraph.''.
(b) Conforming Amendments.--
(1) Clause (i) of section 7874(a)(2)(B) of such Code is
amended by striking ``after March 4, 2003,'' inserting
``after March 4, 2003, and before May 9, 2014, or after May
8, 2016,''.
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(2) Subsection (c) of section 7874 of such Code is
amended--
(A) in paragraph (2)--
(i) by striking ``subsection (a)(2)(B)(ii)'' and inserting
``subsections (a)(2)(B)(ii) and (b)(2)(B)(i)'', and
(ii) by inserting ``or (b)(2)(A)'' after ``(a)(2)(B)(i)''
in subparagraph (B),
(B) in paragraph (3), by inserting ``or (b)(2)(B)(i), as
the case may be,'' after ``(a)(2)(B)(ii)'',
(C) in paragraph (5), by striking ``subsection
(a)(2)(B)(ii)'' and inserting ``subsections (a)(2)(B)(ii) and
(b)(2)(B)(i)'', and
(D) in paragraph (6), by inserting ``or inverted domestic
corporation, as the case may be,'' after ``surrogate foreign
corporation''.
(c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply to taxable years ending after May 8, 2014.
______
By Mr. NELSON (for himself, Ms. Collins, Mr. Carper, Mr.
Grassley, and Mr. Casey):
S. 2361. A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to
crack down on fraud in the Medicare program to protect seniors, people
with disabilities, and taxpayers; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am joined today by my colleague Senator
Collins to introduce legislation aimed at strengthening the
government's hand in stopping Medicare fraud. Senator Collins and I
have tried to offer some decent leadership to the Senate Special
Committee on Aging and in the process we have heard a lot about
Medicare and Medicaid fraud. I want to thank Senators Carper, Grassley,
and Casey for partnering with us to sponsor this legislation we are
introducing today.
Earlier in the year Senator Collins and I convened a hearing of the
aging committee to examine what government was doing to prevent
Medicare fraud. The committee heard from law enforcement that despite
the recent increase in prosecutions, Medicare fraud continues to run
rampant. It is especially true in my State of Florida, where South
Florida remains, unfortunately, ground zero for Medicare fraud.
We also heard from the Medicare organization itself about what the
program is doing to try to better detect and prevent con artists from
defrauding the system.
Then we heard from victims such as Patricia Gresko, a former
schoolteacher from Michigan. She testified about this unbelievable scam
where her doctor talked her into spending thousands of dollars for
treatments for an illness she later discovered she didn't have. These
treatments caused her to have chest pains and forced her to endure
intravenous infusions that took hours.
Her doctor was arrested for bilking $225 million from Medicare. This
is what he did: falsely telling patients they had cancer--if you can
believe that, that they had cancer--so he could bill for expensive
chemotherapy treatments. Ms. Gresko did not have cancer, but she had to
endure all of that.
Today we are losing about $60 billion to $90 billion a year in
Medicare fraud. Just last week, Federal agents arrested 90 people--50
of them, you guessed it, from Miami--on charges they had stolen $260
million from the Medicare Program. Fortunately, when we passed the
Affordable Care Act, we put in provisions--some, I might say, at my
insistence, because of ground zero being in my State--such as
background checks, site visits for prospective Medicare providers and
suppliers, and another one being stronger criminal and civil penalties,
with the authority to withhold payment in law where there is a credible
allegation of fraud. Those are just a few of the weapons in law as a
result of the ACA.
This recent set of arrests of 90 people on charges of Medicare fraud
tells us something else: We have to stop playing the game of Whac-A-
Mole with Medicare criminals in trying to stamp out the fraud one bad
actor at a time. You know what Whac-A-Mole is. You whack this creature
on a table, and once you have whacked it, it pops right back up. So
naturally, we talked to Sylvia Burwell, the President's nominee for
Secretary of HHS. She echoed that last week at her confirmation hearing
in the Finance Committee. She stated that we need to move away from the
pay-and-chase model--which is what has happened. You have to chase them
down. If you catch them, they pop back up again. So we need a better
strategy.
While we are making strides by more aggressively pursuing this kind
of fraud, obviously more needs to be done. That is why today Senator
Collins and I are introducing the Stop SCAMS Act. It will require
Medicare to verify that those wishing to bill Medicare have not owned a
company that previously defrauded the government. It is going to also
allow private insurers and Medicare to share information about the
potential fraudulent operators in the system.
The bill also anticipates problems CMS may face in the future. It
doesn't delay the rollout of the 10 new medical codes in any way--or
shall I say what they refer to as the ICD-10 medical codes; there are a
lot more of those medical codes--but it takes some lessons learned from
the costly delays that have occurred with these codes and uses them to
make the process better in the future. The legislation also requires,
for the new medical coding systems after the ICD-10, that the agency
assess the impact on fraud-prevention systems and do appropriate
testing.
Combating this fraud will continue to be one of the core missions of
our Committee on Aging. We have taken a look at many types of fraud
scams--Jamaican phone scams, identity theft, Social Security fraud,
payday lending--and now we are continuing to focus on Medicare fraud
and will continue to examine additional issues.
Every day, Senator Collins and I hear from seniors about scams, and
they let us know on our committee's hotline. I remind everybody: This
hotline is there for you to report these scams--1-855-303-9470--and we
are going to keep this committee going after these scams.
In the meantime, Senator Collins and I hope our colleagues will join
us in support of this legislation to try to further clamp down on
Medicare fraud. I am so happy to have the partner I have in helping
lead the Committee on Aging, Senator Collins.
In closing, I would say that we really have a broad array of folks
supporting us on this legislation: the National Health Care Anti-Fraud
Association, America's Health Insurance Plans, Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association, the National Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, the
National Insurance Crime Bureau, and Humana Insurance Company. They are
all supporters of this legislation.
Mr. President, I await the comments of my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am delighted to join my friend, the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Aging, Senator Nelson, in
introducing legislation to help combat fraud in the Medicare Program.
We are introducing the Stop Schemes and Crimes Against Medicare and
Seniors Act, or the Stop SCAMS Act.
As Senator Nelson has described, at our hearings earlier this year we
heard absolutely appalling testimony from a woman who had to endure
painful, 7-hour-long series of infusions for a disease she did not have
just because her doctor was bilking the Medicare Program.
Imagine a physician who would do that, who would subject a vulnerable
patient to the anxiety of thinking she had a disease she did not have
and then treat her for a disease she did not have just to collect
Medicare dollars. It really was appalling.
For decades the Government Accountability Office--GAO--has identified
Medicare as being at high risk for improper payments, abuse, and fraud.
In the year 2012 Medicare reported that it had lost more than $44
billion in improper payments due to waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement--and that estimate may well be too low. Think what we
could do with $44 billion to improve the quality of health care and the
coverage we are providing to our seniors or to reduce our unsustainable
national debt. This is simply unacceptable.
The loss of these funds not only compromises the financial integrity
and increases the costs of the Medicare Program, but it also undermines
our ability to provide needed health care services to the more than 54
million older and disabled Americans who depend on this vital program.
Back in the late 1990s when I was chairman of the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations, we held a series of hearings to examine
fraud in
[[Page S3191]]
the Medicare Program. We identified the dangerous trend of an
increasing number of completely bogus providers entering the system
with the sole and explicit purpose of robbing it. One of our witnesses
actually testified that he went into Medicare fraud because it was
easier and safer than dealing in drugs; he could make a lot more money
at far less risk of being caught.
Our hearings led to the adoption of some safeguards and better
internal controls. But many years later what our continuing hearings
have demonstrated is that unscrupulous individuals are always adopting
and seeking out new ways to rip off the system. They seem to be always
one step ahead of the authorities.
I do wish to emphasize an extremely important point; that is, the
vast majority of medical professionals are caring, dedicated health
care providers whose top priority is the welfare of their patients.
When we were investigating Medicare fraud in the late 1990s, what we
found were a whole lot of individuals posing as health care providers
who had no medical training whatsoever. I remember one memorable case
where, had there been a site visit, it would have been discovered that
this bogus provider had an office in the middle of the runway of the
Miami airport. But, unfortunately, back then there were no site visits.
Health care providers--the true professionals--are the ones who are
most appalled by the unscrupulous bandits who take advantage of
weaknesses in the Medicare Program to bleed billions of dollars from
the program.
As I indicated, we have made some progress over the years in the
battle against Medicare fraud since I chaired those hearings.
Unfortunately, however, there is no line item in the budget titled
``waste, fraud, and abuse'' that we can simply strike to eliminate this
problem and solve it once and for all.
The task of ferreting out wasteful and fraudulent spending is made
all the more difficult by the ingenuity of the scam artists, who
continually adopt new methods of ripping off both the Medicare and the
Medicaid Programs.
It is clear, as my distinguished chairman indicated, that we must do
more than shift from a pay-and-chase strategy to combat Medicare fraud
to one that prevents the harm from ever occurring in the first place.
That is what the bipartisan bill we are introducing today would do.
Among other provisions, our legislation would require Medicare to
verify health care provider ownership interests using other databases
before new health care providers are allowed to enroll in the program.
That is an upfront control that we can and should implement. Currently,
Medicare relies on self-reported information. As a consequence,
providers who previously had an ownership interest in an organization
that defrauded Medicare can potentially get back into the program by
simply using different names and failing to disclose their interest in
the previous organization or practice.
Our legislation would also allow private insurers to share
information about potentially fraudulent providers with Medicare and
with each other to prevent further health care fraud.
It would also allow the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to make
recommendations to us regarding fraud prevention, and our bill would
require the Medicare Program to develop a strategy for more accurately
and reliably estimating how many dollars are lost each year to fraud.
As the chairman indicated, our legislation is endorsed by a wide
variety of organizations, including the National Health Care Anti-Fraud
Association, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Humana,
America's Health Insurance Plans, and the Coalition Against Insurance
Fraud.
I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in
cosponsoring this important bill--legislation that I believe really can
make a difference. I hope this is a bill we can move quickly. It is a
commonsense bill. It will save taxpayer and beneficiary dollars, and it
will help to curb the excessive fraud, the unacceptable fraud that is
depleting dollars from a program--the Medicare Program--that is already
under financial strain.
So let's move this bill. Let's send it to the House and on to the
President for his signature as soon as possible.
Mr. President, I again commend the Senator from Florida for his
leadership. It has been a great pleasure to work with him on this
important issue.
____________________