Story #2: Feds Made $125 Billion in "Improper Payments"
RUSH: Cybercast News Service: "At a time of growing concern about government spending, the federal government made $125 billion in 'improper payments' in fiscal 2010, more than eleven times the total 2010 spending by the U.S State Department." Now, if we made $125 billion in improper payments in 2010, enough to fund the State Department 11 times over, what is this raise the debt ceiling garbage? What is this?
Rush only tells a little bit of it. What's the real scoop?
CNSNews.com: Feds Made $125 Billion in 'Improper Payments' in 2010--Enough To Fund State Department 11 Times Over
Ten programs accounted for 94 percent of all improper payments in 2010, led by Medicare, which reported $34.3 billion in improper payments – mainly because of medically unnecessary services and insufficient documentation.
Viewed a different way, the estimated $34.3 billion in improper payments attributed to Medicare in fiscal 2010 nearly equals the $38.5 billion in budget cuts made by Republicans in 2011, the largest spending cut in history.
Other programs making the “top ten” list are as follows:
2. Medicaid (Health and Human Services)
22.5 billion
Primary causes: Insufficient or no documentation provided for conducting medical reviews and cases that were either ineligible or their eligibility status could not be determined
3. Unemployment Insurance (Labor Dept.)
17.5 billion
Primary causes: Eligibility errors, errors in handling separation issues, and claimants who have returned to work and continue to claim benefits
4. Earned Income Tax Credit (Treasury Dept.)
16.9 billion
Primary causes: High turnover of eligible claimants, confusion among eligible claimants, complexity of the law, structure of the program, unscrupulous return preparers, and fraud
5. Medicare Advantage (Health and Human Services)
$13.6 billion
Primary causes: Insufficient supporting documentation, and errors in the transfer of data and payment calculations
6. Supplemental Security Income (Social Security Administration)
$4.8 billion
Primary causes: Incorrect computations, misapplication of an income or resource exclusion, and inadequate verification of accounts and wages
7. Old Age Survivors’ and Disability Insurance (Social Security Administration)
$3.2 billion
Primary causes: Computation errors; nonverification of earnings, income, or work status; and incorrect processing of applications or payments
8. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (Agriculture Dept.)
$2.2 billion
Primary causes: Incomplete or inaccurate reporting of income by participants and incorrect eligibility determination by caseworkers
9. National School Lunch (Agriculture Dept.)
$1.5 billion
Primary causes: Verification and authentication errors, including inadequate documentation and fraud or misrepresentation by participants
10. Pell Grants (Education Dept.)
$1.0
Primary causes: Verification errors
Kay Daly, the report’s author, told CNSNews.com that there is no breakout to explain what portions of the $125 billion total came from fraud or overpayments, etc. But she did say that improper payments were typically due to overpayments and payments made to people who were ineligible for government assistance.
GAO explained that government agencies offer many different reasons for why they incorrectly sent 5.5 percent of their combined budgets out the door erroneously, including poor documentation, program changes, and even simple math errors.
“Agencies cited a number of causes for the estimated $125.4 billion in reported improper payments, including insufficient documentation, incorrect computations, changes in program requirements, and in some cases fraud.”
GAO also noted that the year-to-year change in improper payments was primarily due to an increase in improper payment estimates in the top four programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit
GAO said those four programs reported higher improper payments because they were spending more money – and the more money the government spends, the more spending errors it makes.
“Agencies reported that the increases in the estimates for these programs were primarily attributable to an increase in program outlays,” GAO said.
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