Cato Institute puts health care fraud at over $60 billion per year

Fraud, and certainly abuse
The Cato Institute gets its knickers in a knot about Medicare fraud, citing a report that puts health care fraud at over $60 billion per year.Let's put this number in a bit of perspective:

Medicare actually lost about seven cents of every dollar spent to fraud, waste and mistakes in 1998, government auditors said earlier this month.

That amounts to more than $12 billion -- but it's only about half of what was lost by the government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled just two years ago.

Yep, a fivefold increase in less than a decade.

Let's see, what happened in that decade?

Oh, yes, the administrators at the top changed.

You don't send Republicans to do a man's job.

Update: Medicare reduces costs for providers, it turns out. I guess the Bush League couldn't fix that.