Tom Carper

We need a major league Inspector General at DHS.

All right, thank you. Let the record show nobody disagrees.

Let me ask the other panelists, just by a show of hands, do any of you agree with what Mayor Cornett has just said?

Thanks to the panel. You made some really good points.

That doesn't happen every day. Would you just say that again for us?

It warms up the room when you say that.

I like to say, everything I do I know I can do better.

It is hard to believe that we find ourselves looking, instead of at a sea of black ink where we were 10, 11 years ago, at a sea of red ink.

My boys are 21 and 23. They are pretty sure that Medicare or Social Security are not going to be there for them.

I think there is a bit of a moral imperative here for us to get better results for less money.

Give us an example of that.

All right. Good. Thanks.

So the financial incentives might be working just the opposite.

How do we harness market forces in this situation to reduce this kind of illegal behavior? Or can we?

Data is a powerful tool not just for investigators but for management to actually oversee and manage a program

The funding, I think the Affordable Care Act provided some solid funding in the anti-fraud area

I think that there is a combination of things that could be done to address doctor shopping here.

A lot of times we talk here about our responsibility to provide oversight, good oversight, and in many cases to work with GAO in order to find behavior that is financially wasteful and to put a spotlight on that.

That is the list you do not want your name to appear on because it means you are dead.

The legislation contains a number of ideas that I think directly impact the diversion of drugs from the Medicare prescription drug program.

I worked with Senator Brown and others, Tom Coburn, Senator Coburn, and others on our Subcommittee to try to write legislation that is aimed at curbing waste and fraud in both Medicare and Medicaid.

Even if it were four times higher, that would be a heck of a lot money. That would be like $600 million in a year.

Is there any way to factor in those costs to arrive at the true taxpayer price of this abuse?

Could you talk further with us about that figure? How did GAO come up with it?

I think, again, our current judgment is that we think that more comprehensive drug utilization review is the best strategy right now.