Powerful Congress member does little to stop fraud in health care

July 24, 2009

Examiner Columnist
July 24, 2009
By Newt Gingrich
Originally published in The San Francisco Examiner

Fraud and abuse in America's health care system costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year --more than enough to pay for high-quality private health insurance for every uninsured American. But for whatever reason, Congress ignores this massive pot of money, powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, in particular.

A new Zogby poll asked Americans what their preferred way to pay for modernizing our health care system. Eighty-eight percent said "eliminate fraud," which was well ahead of the second-place finisher, "standardize administrative forms" at 77 percent. "Reduce medical errors" was third at 72 percent.

Another new poll by Insider Advantage found that 61 percent of respondents said Congress should address the issue of fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid before enacting a new government-run health care plan.

As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Waxman is a key leader in Congress on all matters of health. When he led the subcommittee on health from 1984-94, Waxman was responsible for aggressive expansions of Medicaid that are now bankrupting states. Today, spending on Medicaid exceeds outlays on K-12 education in virtually every state.

In the Democrats' now-failed $787 billion stimulus bill, Waxman demanded provisions that eliminated citizenship, identity, income and asset-verification requirements for Medicaid enrollees in hopes of ensuring that millions of illegal immigrants would receive taxpayer-funded health care services. We Americans will post our largest-ever budget deficit this year. And Waxman is determined to spend your money on recipients it was never intended for.

He also opposes efforts to promote transparency for providers of health care services, despite the fact that 98 percent of Americans believe they have the right to know cost and quality information.

Waxman remains a vigorous opponent of account-based plans like Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements, which are exploding in popularity because they give individuals more control and create the right incentives for smart shopping. Twenty million of these plans exist today because they work.

Waxman and his cronies'rationalization for government-run health care is that it has "low administrative costs," which is only the case because they simply pay claims and do almost zero checking into fraudulent activities.

And Waxman wonders why he's struggling to pass his bill out of his own committee despite a 13-vote majority.