Massive Medicare & Medicaid Fraud Argue for Including Ryan Plan in Debt-Limit Negotiations

The Cato Institute has released a new video discussing massive fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, which could easily exceed $100 billion per year. The video is based on a recent article in National Review by Cato director of health policy studies Michael F. Cannon.  

The video demonstrates what Cannon recently told a congressional oversight panel: “the acute problems of waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid are not a consequence of fee-for-service payment or any other particular design feature; they are a consequence of government.”

It also demonstrates why the budget blueprint proposed by House Budget committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) should be part of the current debt-limit negotiations: it offers the only real hope for reducing fraud in these programs. “What the Ryan plan would do,” Cannon writes, “is reduce how much the fraudsters — many of whom sport congressional lapel pins — fleece the American taxpayer. And that is no small thing.”