Greg Ganske: “I spoke earlier this evening on the provisions against fraud in the bill. And to go back over these, they establish a…”

“I spoke earlier this evening on the provisions against fraud in the bill. And to go back over these, they establish a national health care fraud control program and extend antifraud rules for Medicare and Medicaid. There are a number of good things in this. If there is fraud and abuse in the system and a senior citizen would identify this, the Secretary can provide a reward to those seniors who have identified the problem. I have practiced in the system. Unfortunately, there is some fraud and abuse in the system among all practitioners, and so I would enter into a colloquy with the gentlewoman from Texas if she would care to enter into a colloquy, because I think that this bill is a reasoned approach to something that is very important to help reduce health care costs, and that is the fact that the Inspector General has identified fraud and abuse in the system. One of the things that we have found is that in the bill when we are talking about criminal penalties, we are talking about knowing and willful, and so there is a high standard for practitioners to receive whatever type for criminal procedures.”