Tom Carper

The second piece is we want you to stop making them. We want to stop making them.

First, make sure all Federal agencies, including Medicare, all parts of Medicare, Medicaid, are reporting improper payments.

The other piece of the Recovery Act (RA) was direct Federal spending for projects to help rebuild our physical and economic infrastructure while at the same time preserving jobs.

I have heard estimates for improper payments for Medicare and Medicaid combined on an annual basis, estimates that go up as high as $60 billion a year, maybe even more.

That is why over a year ago, President Obama proposed and this Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to help put Americans back to work.

Part of what we tried to do in the improper payments legislation that Senator McCain and I, Senator Collins and others, Senator Coburn, Senator McCaskill, had worked on is we said basically there are three things we wanted to be done with…

The plan totaled some $787 billion over a couple of years, much of it in the form of tax cuts for working Americans.

The task that was set out for you was not an easy one.

Let me say this: About roughly half--of the ideas of what we need to do to stop making these improper payments, about half of them, maybe half of them, have been acted on, but the rest have not.

The third part of it is we want you to go out and use private recovery contractors to go out and recover as much of the money that has been improperly paid, overpaid, as you can.

Thank you, Senator McCain.

Well, good. It sounds like this is a problem that could take years to finish out, so it looks like we will have you around for a little while.

I can remember a day not that long ago when someone would accuse you of being transparent, it was not a compliment.

Over the last couple of years, everybody knows we have faced a set of economic challenges that are almost unparalleled since going back to the Great Depression.

If we keep on doing things the way we have always done them, we will keep on getting the same result.

I think the Recovery Board's work has shown us or provided for us a great example of how we can leverage both of these assets to produce real results.

I suggested to the fellow who--I think it was either the Acting Director of the Bureau of the Census or about to become the Director... maybe we should consider like offering a reward to people who participate in the census.

I think it saves the--reduces expenditures by--I do not know, $80, $90, $100 million.

And when the President and this Congress put together this plan, we wanted to make sure that not one dime was wasted.

We are just completing our decennial census.

So the intelligence community said we cannot do this or this cannot be done. You did it in less than 9 hours?

The biggest gold mine in the world is between our ears.

My hope is that OMB is going to be at least from afar riding herd on this.

I had the privilege of visiting, almost a year ago, the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic is one of a number of well-known, highly respected health delivery systems in this country... They have demonstrated the ability to provide…

What does the Congress need to do?