Tom Harkin: “so much of the problem is that they are funded but they do not have funds for travel. Most of their investigative and…”

“so much of the problem is that they are funded but they do not have funds for travel. Most of their investigative and audit work requires travel. So what we really have is hundreds of audit professionals, auditors sitting at their desks unable to do their jobs. Every day that they are underfunded, our taxpayers lose money. What kind of actions are not happening? Convictions, recoveries in fines relating to a wide range of abuses. In fact, the inspector general even said in her letter that they are unable to cut off people who are receiving money from Medicare even though they have been convicted. Here it is, she says: The shutdowns prevented us from excluding individuals and entities from participation in Medicare and Medicaid. Providers are allowed to continue to bill even though they should be excluded due to convictions or they are abusive to patients, again, costing us millions of dollars each and every day. So I do not think there should be any disagreement on either side of the aisle with this amendment that simply ensures the inspector general efforts to combat Medicare fraud are not cut from last year's level. Again, we seem to have our priorities out of whack. The previous continuing resolution provided full-year funding to a number of programs, including, for example, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I have no problem with that. I support that.…”