Medicare Fraud: How Many Dead Doctors Does it Take to Prescribe $90 Million in Medical Equipment for Medicare...(ut in the future which doctors will no l...),Health

Cannon will also discuss studies which show that Medicare's universal coverage has lead to thirty percent wasted spending much of which includes $100 million that has been spent on services serving no beneficial health-related purpose. Meanwhile, Americans have suffered ten separate national tax increases to pay for Medicare in its short forty-year history.

While Medicare currently allows patients to see any doctor they wish, Cannon contends that this could easily change in the near future.

"Because Medicare does not scrutinize medical services like commercial carriers, doctors have come to rely on the Medicare system to pay them without question," says Cannon. "In the past when Republicans have attempted to cut Medicare payments to doctors by up to eleven percent, doctors have successfully persuaded Congress not to cut the payments. Should the cuts eventually pass in Congress, many doctors would likely stop accepting Medicare patients."

Hall and Cannon will also discuss recent ABC and New York Times reports that show Medicare suppliers have consistently abused the badly managed Medicare system by filing claims which contained the identification numbers of 18,240 deceased physicians. One deceased doctor's identification number was used 484 times from 2003 to 2006 even though he died in 1999. The Medicare supplier that fraudulently used the number netted $544,789.

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