South Florida lawmakers unite to fight Medicare fraud
Published: 2010-07-18 18:18:20By: JAY WEAVER | Miami Herald | April 14, 2010
Facing a room packed with Miami senior citizens, two South Florida congressional members from opposing parties took the remarkable step of jointly backing new legislation aimed at ridding the region -- and nation -- of a multibillion-dollar scourge: Medicare fraud.
U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, and Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, unveiled their bipartisan legislation at the Little Havana Activities & Nutrition Center in Little Havana Tuesday. It was an appropriate setting for their news conference, partly because seniors are the ones who suffer when the program is ripped off and also because Hispanics account for a majority of Medicare fraud in South Florida.
"There have been lots of differences on healthcare [reform], but we're together on this," Ros-Lehtinen told about 200 people. She held up Tuesday's front-page story in both The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, profiling a former Miami Springs High pitching ace, Ihosvany Marquez, who pleaded guilty to ripping off Medicare for $22 million.
"It's fraud against you," she said, to robust applause.
Their legislation -- considered long overdue by many -- takes particular aim at Medicare theft in Miami-Dade County, widely regarded as the nation's capital of healthcare fraud. Medicare fraud in South Florida costs taxpayers between $3 billion and $4 billion every year, according to law enforcement and healthcare officials.
Nationwide, Medicare and other healthcare fraud is estimated to cost $68 billion annually -- about $18 billion more than the Obama administration plans to spend on education next year.
Despite their conflicts over the Democrats' victorious healthcare reform legislation, the South Florida duo say they will jointly urge Congress to support tougher criminal penalties for those caught stealing from the taxpayer-funded program for the elderly and disabled.