Another week, another story involving potentially billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted in Washington.
A few days ago, The New York Times profiled a significant increase in catheter-related fraud in the Medicare program. This time, Politico documented longer-running problems regarding health insurance coverage for federal workers.
In both cases, outrage about the fraud seems to far outrun efforts by federal officials to do anything to stop it. With such lax fiscal controls, is it any wonder that Washington has run up $34 trillion in debt and counting?
Not Removing Ineligible Participants
The Politico story highlighted work by auditors at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Specifically, GAO noted that the federal government does not review FEHBP participants’ eligibility.
By not reviewing eligibility, federal employees could add dependents to their family coverage who do not meet statutory criteria, allowing individuals to receive taxpayer-subsidized health coverage via fraudulent means. The GAO report cites several examples where this type of fraud occurred, including one individual who kept an ex-spouse on subsidized FEHBP coverage for over a decade.
Despite these incidents of fraud, the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the FEHBP, has failed to conduct a comprehensive audit examining all dependents’ eligibility. Its stated reason for not doing so amounts to bureaucratic buck-passing. Because each federal agency (e.g., Treasury Department, Labor Department, etc.) enrolls and funds the benefits for its workers, OPM worries that the costs of an eligibility audit will fall solely on its shoulders
