Health Care Fraud

I attended a conference on employee pension and health benefits.  One of the classes was on health care fraud.  The United States pays double the amount for health care for half the benefits elsewhere in the world. No, we do not lead the world on taking care of our citizens.  There's money to be made in exploiting people's sickness and pools of insurance funds with little oversight.  One of the biggest abusers is the pharmaceutical industry.  Yawn.  We already knew that.

Everybody seems to think that fraud happens in blighted areas where doctors with a shack and shingle outside their run-down office complete with cracked windows and cracked concrete and obtain the working poor as clients to milk workers' compensation, SDI, MediCal, etc., for whatever its worth for both themselves and their patients.

Nope.  Guess again.

Most fraud happens in your yuppie neighborhoods from doctors who look and act like Marcus Welby (I guess I'm dating myself).  What???  Did I just blow your socks off????

When they are caught most of the time it never hits the press.  It would be like announcing that Santa Claus is fake to a room full of pre-schoolers.  They are usually outstanding members of the community and serve on serve on various committees and acclaimed medical boards.  No reporter wants to take the bullet on that one.  The doctors who fraud the system justify their actions by stating that "everybody else does it" and that "how else am I supposed to pay off my med school student debt?"

I can't make this stuff up.