Joe Scarborough: “I go through the panhandle, hold town hall meetings all the time. As I hold town hall meetings, I hold Medicare town…”

“I go through the panhandle, hold town hall meetings all the time. As I hold town hall meetings, I hold Medicare town hall meetings, and I ask people what they think the problem is with Medicare. I cannot tell you how many people cite waste, fraud and abuse inside the system. They will tell me that a medical provider will overcharge them and that they will call up, they will say, ``You have overcharged me here. You need to correct my bill.'' And the provider will say, ``Don't worry about it, it's not your money.'' The sad fact is, it is their money. I will tell you what, if I added up all of the waste, fraud and abuse cases I heard in those town hall meetings, I think it would be enough to take care of the Federal debt. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that there is waste, fraud and abuse in the system, and we also cannot close our eyes to the fact that this system continues to lose money. I was shocked, like I know the gentleman was, and quite frankly worried for my parents and for my 93-year-old grandmother, shocked to find out that the Clinton administration actually had knowledge that Medicare was losing money this past fall and that, unlike what the President had told us in the Medicare trustees' report back in April of 1995, that Medicare was going to go broke much faster than the 7 years they had originally told us. It was actually going to go broke a lot earlier.”