As if it weren’t bad enough that American taxpayers annually dole out
huge sums to educate, incarcerate and medically treat illegal
immigrants, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spent
tens of millions of dollars to give them free prescription drugs.
In all, CMS, which is part of the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), blew $29 million to cover Medicare Part D prescription
drugs for 4,139 “unlawfully present” individuals that did not qualify
for the benefit, according to an HHS Inspector General report. This occurred during a two-year period between 2009 and 2011, according to the agency watchdog.
If you think that’s bad, earlier this year CMS paid $91.6 million to
health care providers to cover 2,600 ineligible illegal aliens. A 1996
law specifically prohibits illegal immigrants from getting federal
healthcare benefits such as Medicare and Medicaid yet it continues to
occur, despite audits exposing the violations. How? Because CMS doesn’t
have policies and procedures that could enable it to detect such
“improper payments,” according to an HHS Inspector General report
released in January.
That means Americans will likely continue paying exorbitant amounts
to provide illegal aliens with services banned by federal law. The
prescription scandal involves Medicare Part D, a voluntary program that
requires qualified beneficiaries to enroll in the federally approved
prescription drug plan by completing paperwork.
Supposedly CMS uses information from the Social Security
Administration to verify eligibility, but the new audit reveals this:
“CMS did not have a policy addressing payments for unlawfully present
beneficiaries under Medicare Part D that was equivalent to the existing
policy that covers payments for these beneficiaries under Parts A and
B.” That means the agency doesn’t have “internal controls to identify
and disenroll unlawfully present beneficiaries.”
In a nutshell, it appears that the Health Department’s watchdog is
essentially saying that there’s nothing the feds can do about this.
(Click link below to read more)
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About Me

- Judy Chaffee
- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
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