Tom Coburn: “Here is what we know. Medicare fraud, out and out pure Medicare fraud. It is somewhere between $70 billion and $90…”

“Here is what we know. Medicare fraud, out and out pure Medicare fraud. It is somewhere between $70 billion and $90 billion. I picked the middle, which is $80 billion. We have testimony and studies and lots of data on that that will show us that at least $80 billion worth of Medicare money is being ripped off every year. Let me give some examples. I will go through some. Here is one company that billed Medicare $170 million for HIV drugs. Do you know how much in HIV drugs they did? Less than a million. But they billed $170 million. There was $142 million for nonexistent delivery of supplies and parts and medical equipment--$142 million. How about taking Medicare numbers from seniors and billing Medicare for prosthetic arms on people who already have two arms? That came to $1.4 billion last year. Think about that--$1.4 billion was billed to Medicare for prosthetic arms for people who don't need prosthetic arms. How about 80 percent of the drugs billed across the entire United States for HIV under Medicare went to the State of Florida, which has less than 10 percent of the HIV patients who are eligible for Medicare. How is that possible? How about one wheelchair that got billed to Medicare? It was never sent, but they billed $5 million to Medicare through multiple billings. It is easy to add up to $80 billion. I could go on.…”