David Weldon: “I want to just amplify on this fraud and abuse issue, because it is a very, very important area. I had a series of…”

“I want to just amplify on this fraud and abuse issue, because it is a very, very important area. I had a series of townhall meetings with senior citizens in my district over the summer, and one of the messages I heard over and over and over again is we have to do something about this waste and abuse in the system. I had a lady come to me, she had a bill that was for her week in the hospital and it showed her staying 2 weeks in the hospital. I had another gentlewoman come to me with a bill that showed they billed for her being in the hospital and her husband being in the hospital at the same exact time when he was not in the hospital at all. He was at home and coming in to visit her every day. So we have some real problems in the system with that. One of the aspects of the Medicare Plus plan is these provider-sponsored networks. I want to underscore a very, very important point in that feature of Medicare Plus. If there is any excessive testing being done, if there is any excessive procedures being done, the person who picks up the tab for those is not the taxpayer; it is not the Federal Government, and it is not the senior citizen, it is the provider in that network who did that unnecessary test and who did those unnecessary procedures. So that will be a tremendous incentive in that part of our reform package, in Medicare Plus, that will make sure that we really do root out fraud and abuse.”