    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [January 13, 1998]
    [Pages 47-48]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on Lifting the Medicare Home Health Provider Moratorium
    January 13, 1998

        Medicare is more than just another program. For millions of
    Americans, it is a lifeline. Maintaining the integrity of that lifeline
    has long been a top priority of this administration.
        Last September I announced that the Department of Health and Human
    Services was declaring the first ever moratorium to stop new home health
    providers from entering the Medicare program. We took this unprecedented
    action to give the administration the opportunity to implement new
    regulations to create protections to screen out providers who are likely
    to cheat Medicare.
        Today I am announcing that the Department is removing the moratorium
    because those new, tougher regulations are in place to root out fraud
    and abuse in the home health industry. These regulations will help keep
    the bad apples--the providers who commit fraud and abuse--out of the
    home health industry. These actions--combined with other antifraud
    initiatives and other savings initiatives--have helped

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    slow the growth of home health spending. In fact, the Medicare actuary
    now reports that the rate of increase in Medicare spending on home
    health has slowed to just 5.4 percent from previous rates that exceeded
    25 percent.
        These efforts to root fraud and abuse out of the home health
    industry build on my administration's longstanding efforts to combat
    fraud and abuse. Since 1993, we have assigned more Federal prosecutors
    and FBI agents to fight health care fraud than ever before. As a result,
    convictions have gone up a full 240 percent, and we have saved some $20
    billion in health care claims. The Kassebaum-Kennedy legislation I
    signed into law created--for the first time ever--a stable funding
    source to fight fraud and abuse. This year's historic Balanced Budget
    Act, which ensured the life of the Medicare Trust Fund until at least
    2010, also gave us an array of new weapons in our fight to keep scam
    artists and fly-by-night health care providers out of Medicare and
    Medicaid.
        I would like to thank the Department of Health and Human Services
    and the Department of Justice for their efforts to combat fraud and
    abuse in the home health industry.
        We will continue to work to ensure that we do everything possible to
    combat fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.