The government sent more than $180 million in checks to dead people over the last three years according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. We also paid 14,000 felons in jail or running from the law. Add the dead people and criminals together and the total goes to $230 million for three years. It gets better. Medicare and Medicaid paid out $65 billion in fraudulent payments last year alone.
Forget the $230 million, let’s put that $65 billion into perspective. BP’s entire estimated payout for this horrific oil spill is $65 billion. All online spending in 2010 will total almost $65 billion. You could buy 13 Virginia-class nuclear submarines with $65 billion or pay off every bank for home equity losses last year. You could live like Bernie Madoff, who stole $65 billion during his ponzi scheme. With $65 billion, you could pay off the entire U.S. budget shortfall last month.
President Obama has announced efforts to stop these practices that have gone on for years under previous administrations (especially under the eight-year prevue of Republicans who rant so hard about government waste by Democrats). If Bush alone had stopped that $65 billion a year fraud handout in Medicare/Medicaid during his eight-year tenure, we’d have saved enough, to buy almost 1.5 million Corvettes, or enough to own Bill Gates with enough left over to buy every NFL team in the country and then some.
Since I am far too young to get in on the $65 billion Medicare/Medicaid jackpot payout, perhaps committing a crime or dying would be a way to snag some of that $230 million before the faucet gets cut off.
