re: #132 The Mother Of All Pies

Even better than that is that the GOP cut funding to the program that seeks out waste/fraud/graft in Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. They cut more than a billion dollars.

Both the House and Senate budgets fail to include the $1.166 billion in funding the BCA sanctions in 2016 for reducing overpayments and fraud in the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, and the $395 million for combatting Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Congress provided the allowed amounts for fiscal year 2015 — $1.123 billion to combat fraud and overpayments in the disability programs and $361 million to address Medicare and Medicaid fraud — but under the new House and Senate budgets, this funding would end.

These program integrity activities have been found to save substantial sums, reduce program costs, and thereby lower budget deficits. For example, a key use of program integrity funding for Social Security and SSI is to conduct “continuing disability reviews” to weed out beneficiaries who have recovered from their impairments. The Social Security actuaries have found that these reviews save about $10 for every $1 they cost.

Similarly, program integrity activities to detect and stop erroneous payments and outright fraud in Medicare and Medicaid (including payments to doctors and hospitals that improperly bill or overbill the programs) saved about $8 for each dollar spent on such efforts in 2012-2014.

They cut spending, which will actually reduce revenues even further because of unrecovered fraud (which is something they constantly harp on for cost savings).

The $1 billion cut from the graft unit will mean lost revenues upwards of $8 billion. That means more than $7 billion will not be realized because of GOP fiscal irresponsibility.

And this same thinking translates to the IRS, which is unable to conduct as many audits to root out tax evasion and underpayments. Fewer audits means less chances that someone will be uncovered engaging in tax evasion.