
With the United Slate, Sam Altman Presents a Political Vision - abhi3
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/with-the-united-slate-sam-altman-presents-a-political-vision-for-california-and-the-u-s/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
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Powerofmene
I love the ideas that Sam Altman has but would say that reigning in
Medicare/Medicaid fraud would truly need to be tackled aggressively before
expanding Medicare. You need to look no further than the $1.3 billion Medicare
fraud that was reported today.

One area that seriously needs addressing with regards to healthcare that
nobody thinks about are the family member caregivers who cannot work outside
of the home because their are no resources to care for their disabled family
members. In these situations the disabled family members have Medicare (after
27 months from disability date) but the caregiver who cannot work outside of
the home because they have to provide care for their loved ones are currently
not eligible for Medicare until they reach 65. These families are typically
financially strapped already due to the uncovered cost of healthcare for their
loved ones. Add that to then not being able to work outside of the home
because they must care for their loved one and you are dealing with typically
very low income families. When a family member is the primary caregiver of an
individual with disabilities they should be able to get on Medicare as well
regardless of age. This would go a long way to dealing with caregiver
depression and would allow thousands of individuals to stay in their homes
rather than being placed in institutions or community based services because
one family member cannot stay home and provide care because they must work to
purchase their own health insurance.

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PaulHoule
That $1.3 billion is in the context of a program that spent $553 billion in FY
2016.

[http://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/total-
medicaid-s...](http://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/total-medicaid-
spending/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D)

Medicare and Medicaid fraud are real problems, but conservatives like to
overstate them, as they like to overstate fraud in the "Lifeline" program.

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Powerofmene
The $1.3 billion was from a single fraud ring not overall Medicare fraud. That
was merely one investigation that netted 400 individuals. In 2015 it was
reported that Medicare fraud for the previous year was a $60 Billion of a $600
billion Program while in 2016 it was reported that $140 Billion in "improper
payments" were paid on the Medicaid program or 12% of the total program. Oh,
and the rate of improper payments on Medicaid has almost doubled in the last
few years.

So across both programs, $200 billion in fraudulent/improper payments in
approximately one year. Just could not access the CMS website to gain the most
recent Medicare numbers.

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PaulHoule
What's that on his face?

