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Committee to hear payment problems
Associated Press
“The Social Security and Medicare programs don't have a penny to spare for undeserving populations,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, whose Senate Finance Committee will hold hearings on the payments this week. “They're already being squeezed to the limi,'”
Medicare, for example, paid more than $25,000 for services to an inmate convicted of killing his mother and more than $97,000 to a facility that treated nine inmates whose crimes included arson, attempted assault, breaking and entering and burglary.
The payments were made despite federal laws prohibiting most prisoners from receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments and barring fugitive felons, probation and parole violators from receiving Supplemental Security Income for needy aged, blind or disabled people.
While some state or local laws include provisions that could qualify prisoners for Medicare and Medicaid, officials of those programs have not tried to determine which jurisdictions might allow the benefits.
“The government is aiding and abetting the flight of fugitive felons,” said Grassley, R-Iowa. “Government programs are paying to help convicted criminals stay on the lam.”
According to documents provided to The Associated Press, problems identified so far by investigators for the Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security, Congress and Louisiana show:
—$32 million in Medicare fee-for-service payments were made on behalf of 7,438 incarcerated beneficiaries during calendar years 1997 through 1999, with a strong likelihood that most of the payments violated the law.
—Some $75 million in federal Medicaid funds were paid to Louisiana State University medical facilities for inmate care from 1997 through this year. A top Louisiana state auditor, Daniel Kyle, questioned why federal officials approved the disbursements when the Code of Federal Regulations “specificially states such costs are not allowable.”
—At least 27,700 fugitives were paid some $76 million in Supplemental Security Income benefits since August 1996 contrary to law, and the tab may increase by $30 million annually if the payments continue, the AP reported in December.
