Tom Harkin: “I must also be frank. I thought before Christmas we would have settled this. It was not. I thought it would be settled…”

“I must also be frank. I thought before Christmas we would have settled this. It was not. I thought it would be settled soon after. It was not. It is going from month to month to month, and you have to stop and say, What is happening? That is what precipitated my letter to the inspector general a couple weeks ago. I wanted to know if they had any data to see what was happening. They did. They have the data from October, November and December of this fiscal year, the first quarter, compared to last year. It is really shocking what is happening because they do not have adequate funding to recoup money for taxpayers. I am going on what the inspector general said in her letter. I just indicate to the Senator from Oregon, that was the only reason I had not raised it before, because I had no idea it was as bad as it is. That is why I sent the letter. Now is the time to get the money in to stop this bleeding of the Medicare money.”