WASHINGTON (AP)

Aug 8, 9:07 AM (ET) 

 

Obama administration battling medicare fraud  

President Barack Obama has set a high priority on battling health care fraud and waste, hoping for savings to help pay for the new law covering millions now uninsured.

Out of $835 million in questionable Medicare payments identified by private contractors in 2007, the government was only able to recover some $55 million, or about 7 percent, the report found.

 

A recent inspector general report also raised questions about the contractors, who play an important role in Medicare's overall effort to combat fraud.

 

The Obama administration says it's aware of the problem and is close to completing a reorganization of the contractors, to consolidate their work, define their jurisdictions more clearly, and help them coordinate better with claims processors and law enforcement.

 

 Obama abolishes corrupt Minerals Management Agency
...The Obama administration announced plans in May 2010 to reorganize the federal agency to improve its regulatory role by separating safety oversight from the division that collects royalties from oil and gas companies.

 

The proposal would end a decades-old relationship between industry and government that has proved highly profitable - and some say too cozy - for both. The minerals agency, which was created in 1982, brings in an average of $13 billion a year.

 

Numerous Congressional and internal investigations have called the oversight agency badly mismanaged and at times corrupt. It has been rocked by regular scandals, including disclosures in 2008 that agency officials took bribes and engaged in drug use and sex with oil industry officials. And its own scientists have said that senior agency officials in recent years revised staff reports to eliminate environmental concerns that might have complicated oil-company drilling applications for offshore sites in waters near Alaska.

 

The minerals service short-circuited the process when it granted hundreds of recent drilling permits, according to documents and current and former government officials. The BP well that blew in the gulf  in April was granted an exemption from the assessment process because company officials assured regulators that it carried little hazard. Officials went along with the company and granted the permit.