"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

-snip-

I think you have some misconceptions there, Joe. Rates of fraud are
roughly the same with private and public insurers. The high estimate for
total medical fraud in the US is $220 billion, probably based on the same
kind of estimate that pegs Medicare fraud at $60 billion.

In any case, if you want to see a brief, current analysis without many
numbers, and references to a variety of sources, this is a good place to
start:

http://www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departmen...632A4F2163.pdf

Or, you could look at this, which is a one-page summary from the National
Health Care Anti-fraud Association:

http://www.nhcaa.org/eweb/DynamicPag...oblemOfHCFraud

The target of news media is government-run programs, because the idea that
our tax money is being given to fraudsters is a natural news lead,
guaranteed to get people angry. But a fair analysis shows that it's a
worldwide problem for both private and public insurers, and that the rates
of fraud don't vary much between them.

--
Ed Huntress



thanks ed for continuing to be here and posting your rebuttals. just
yesterday i was telling someone about how if you weren't here i probably
would be swayed by their arguments. there have been numerous times when
they post something and i'm like "hmmm, jeez..." meaning, they got me, SURE
that what they've said is true and we're wrong and moving in the wrong
direction. so many times you've done the "fact check" thing. there have
been several times when i've been astonished when you fact check a post and
post a reply that shoots it down. where would we be in the world without
our ed huntresses? after reading this list for a couple years now i'm
deeply suspicious of whatever BOTH sides say (but especially particularly
the right). so much of the stuff that's fed to us is bunk. r.c.m. is a
small pond, i see this as a microcosm of how much propaganda we're fed out
there and the effects it has on us. it's scary.

thanks ed.

b.w.