Lawmakers launch bipartisan effort against Medicare Fraud

Two South Florida lawmakers on opposite sides of the political fence have introduced a bill designed to fight the $1 billion Medicare fraud problem.

In one of the first bipartisan efforts since the divisive passage of federal health care reform, Congressman Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, introduced the Medicare Fraud Enforcement and Prevention Act on Tuesday to a packed crowd at a Little Havana senior community center.

The bill would double the penalties for Medicare fraud, give law enforcement new tools to detect and prosecute fraud and step up screening of those who want to set up health care companies and bill the Medicare program.

Klein, who authored the bill, plans to introduce it in Congress by Wednesday. Ros-Lehtinen is one of 10 co-sponsors.

“We’re working together on this bipartisan measure to help legitimate clinics and doctors so we can stop illegitimate providers who bilk the system, so people like you can’t get the care that you need,” Ros-Lehtinen told the group of mostly Hispanic senior citizens. “We are going to put the rip-off artists in jail.”

Medicare fraud costs taxpayers $60 billion a year, and 20 percent of it originates in South Florida, according to Klein and Ros-Lehtinen. Authorities found $952 million in false Medicare claims in 2009, up from $703 million in 2008.

There has been an increase in fraud, despite the efforts of a federal health care fraud task force, which has prosecuted more than 800 people and identified more than $2.5 billion in fraudulent claims since it started in 2006.