Medicare/Medicaid: $70 Billion in "Improper Payments"

Medicare and Medicaid combined dished out at least $70.5 billion in “improper payments” in 2010 alone — more than the combined budgets of Homeland Security aand the State Department.

Medicare made at least $48 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2010, while Medicaid’s improper payments totaled $22.5 billion, according to Senate testimony from Kathleen King, director of healthcare for the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO said: “An improper payment is any payment that should not have been made or that was made in an incorrect amount (including overpayments and underpayments) under statutory, contractual, administrative, or other legally applicable requirements.”

The $70.5 billion constitutes 8.95 percent of the $781.6 billion in total federal expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid last year, CNS News observed.

The actual amount of improper payments may in fact be higher for Medicare because the $48 billion does not include the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ estimate of the improper payments made by Medicare Part D, the prescription drug-benefit program.

The Center, which is responsible for the improper payments, is a key bureaucracy in implementing Obamacare.

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Homeland Security spent $44.5 billion and the State Department spent $23.8 billion last year.

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