A MEDICAL equipment supplier billed the US Government so often for a wheelchair it ended up costing $US5 million ($5.6m).
That's some wheelchair. I bet Steven Hawking's chair isn't that much.
And last year, south Florida accounted for 80 per cent of the drugs billed across the entire US for Medicare beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS, even though the region has only 10 per cent of eligible HIV/AIDS patients.
How long did it take Medicare to suspect something was wrong?
Fraud against Medicare, the federal health insurer for America's 43 million elderly and disabled, has become so prevalent that it may rival the illegal drug trade as a crime of choice in a state long renowned for cocaine cartels, political shenanigans and swampland real estate scams.
"You can make several million dollars from healthcare fraud and the penalties are much less severe than they are for narcotics trafficking," Mr Acosta said..
Medicare gangs?
In one case, said Alex Acosta, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, a company had billed Medicare for millions of dollars worth of specially formulated asthma medication prepared at what the owner claimed to be his own local pharmacy.
Millions of dollars for meds. Only one problem.
"The person wasn't a pharmacist, he was an air conditioner repairman.
Sounds like someone is asleep at the switch.
For those of you participating at home, how many want the government to take over your health care? Let's see a show of hands.