Tom Carper

Our responsibility is, number one, to make sure there is good clinical judgment.

We will stay busy in this Subcommittee for as long as I get to serve on it and continue to focus on these.

As you consider this, just keep in mind--I am going to read the same statement I gave earlier.

Could we have an unintended consequence here?

That would seem to be ripe for abuse.

Is it true that for folks in the Medicare Part D program, if they are 65 and over, they are not there because they are disabled and unable to work, but they are there because they are 65 and over, traditional Medicare, they can only change…

I think starting next year Part D plan sponsors would have to confirm that a prescription was written by a valid physician.

I would encourage you to at least include those two areas, law enforcement and pharmacies.

I think it is critical that we put into place concrete steps to stop this form of abuse and waste.

Given the right circumstances with the right patients that, hey, we are not making any dent in this, otherwise, we need to take that additional step.

So I believe it is important that in any fraud prevention program--and I testify across Congress on these things--you have to have some consequences at the end of the day for people that might deter them.

State Medicaid pharmacy benefits tend to work very differently than the Part D drug benefit.

Find out what works, do more of that.

We are not interested in process. We are interested in having the ability to actually measure results.

Thanks very much for that statement. Thanks very much for the work that backs it up.

It is estimated that 7 million Americans abuse prescription drugs every year. That is more than the number who are abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy, and inhalants combined.

We just have to do it better. We are in this together.

Unfortunately, too often criminals have figured out how to use Medicare and Medicaid for their own gain.

We have focused like a laser on Federal information technology projects that have gone billions of dollars over budget without ever delivering any real benefit.

We have drilled down on how the Federal Government wastes millions annually maintaining properties and buildings we neither want nor need.

This has been our singular focus and continues to be.

We must stop the fiscal bleeding caused by waste, by fraud, and by abuse.

It has been quite a good hearing, I think.

They do a great job with the resources they have, but they haven't had enough since 2006.

If they are running a business school program and they cannot get accepted by the American Association of the Collegiate Schools of Business, why are we putting Federal dollars into it?