Slashdot Mirror
Affordable Care Act Exchanges Fail To Detect Counterfeit Documentation (atr.org)
Tulsa_Time writes with this excerpt of an account from the (unapologetically partisan) Americans for Tax Reform about a report released by the Government Accountability Office in which "application and enrollment controls on the federal exchange and two state exchanges (California and Kentucky)" were investigated by supplying false information; in each case, the investigators were able to obtain and activate health insurance through the exchanges. A slice:
Ten fictitious applicants were created to test whether verification steps including validating an applicant's Social Security number, verifying citizenship, and verifying household income were completed properly. In order to test these controls, GAO's test applications provided fraudulent documentation: "For each of the 10 undercover applications where we obtained qualified health-plan coverage, the respective marketplace directed that our applicants submit supplementary documentation we provided counterfeit follow-up documentation, such as fictitious Social Security cards with impossible Social Security numbers, for all 10 undercover applications."
I'm sure submitting false information on those forms is illegal. So, make sure all the people responsible go to jail.
You want to arrest the GAO for fraud, for doing their actual job?
That's who wrote the report. Americans for Tax Reform just reported on it.
The pro-ACA people don't care about screening out fake applicants. They think any person getting another government handout is a good thing, regardless of circumstance.
You have it wrong, what they don't care about, or rather for, is the onerous and difficult process to get people covered. Fraud, most of which will be by service providers, is the real issue they worry about.
But instead, it's treated like the problem is somehow on the individual level.
Uh-huh. What else does Rick Scott want you to believe?
I, for one, would prefer to keep the trust but verify nature of the programs
I would if there was any "verify". There was not.
People claim the U.S. should emulate Europe, but it seems they go mysteriously silent when it comes to emulating the controls that Europe has to make healthier care voting work to prevent fraud. If a system has endemic fraud it will eventually fail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This class warfare thing is hilarious. The "elite" aren't suffering from this system designed to encourage fraud. I'm sure folks that are making a million dollars a year could care less about what amounts to a rounding error when it comes to the cost of their insurance. It's the MIDDLE class that's getting soaked here. The rich don't care.
Single payer. Book it done.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The pro-ACA people don't care about screening out fake applicants. They think any person getting another government handout is a good thing, regardless of circumstance.
It's interesting that you describe health care as a "handout", and bolster the metaphor with "regardless of circumstances".
There are perhaps three dozen examples of government-funded health care in the world that we can look to as examples. The US health care ranks worse than all of the top 10 countries.
Framing it as "it's a government handout" implies the subtext "(that you do not deserve)", and is a bit of a misnomer. Our system is horribly broken, we pay 6x as much as other countries and for that price get substandard care.
In short, many *many* people suffer needlessly because our health care system isn't a government handout.
So... I don't see a problem here. We do in fact deserve better health care. We're the US, we *were* the best.
Would you care to explain why a government handout is bad, in this specific instance?
(And before someone asks "well, how do you propose we fix it?", let me just say that we could find a system we like and copy it wholesale. For example, the Canadian system is better than the US system overall, and we could simply copy their procedures and implement them. If we did that, 80% of the money we now spend on health care would be available to stimulate the economy.)
How about if in the course of applying, the fake person also describes a lifestyle that qualifies them for completely subsidized care that other people get to go to work every day to buy for them? This is no different than any other of benefit fraud
Well, it is different, an insurance is just paper (contract), when you obtain the contract to benefit a person that doesn't exist, you've acted in bad faith and obtained a contract that is invalid by nature.
:)
So your chances of successfully upholding the contract is slim. That said, yesm the fake people could probably get some care, before the private insurance company starts looking at the details... This is another problem with private insurance, if there is a problem with contract the insurance company will declare it invalid (but they won't do so before you file a claim, ie. only when do it when you the insurance).
But yes, this is great
Note. insurance contracts in the US are in my experience, super sketchy have through my employer and had to fight very hard to get any kind of actual paper... and I'm still not satisfied that I have sufficiently strong contract to sue my insurance provider should it come to that, and certainly not if my employer decided not to look out for my interest (which I don't have contract saying they will). So legally speaking I'm is a poor standing (despite working for tech company, and having an good PPO plan).
The real truth is that 12/15 new businesses fail in the first year. Over the next two years, 1 more business will go bankrupt, one will continue at a viable loss (definition: Owner makes less money per hour worked than owner could make working for someone else). and only ONE out 15 makes a real profit.
This compares with about 1/3 government agencies considered successful. Government beats new business every day of the week.
The real reason people think governments don't work is that most of the time it's working AGAINST you. Cops ticket you, the IRS taxes you, the city says you can't build that there, etc. The main reason people like the military is that it only works against foreigners, not citizens. So you never complain about them. Even if they kill civilians, torture innocent people, bomb hospitals, etc. The truth is the military is no more effective than any other government agency. They fail just as often, you just don't care.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Pretty sure Reps had nothing to do with the ACA, but go ahead and spin anyway..... like a top.
Everything above is my opinion....YMMV
I hear that a lot but can never find where any vote in congress happened where republicans actually voted for it.
The reality is a lot different than the picture you attempt to paint. Outside of some republicans in very liberal states, very few supported it and the support it seems to have recieved was the lesser of two evils type. There are plenty of conservative states which republicans controlled all branches of government which refused to adopt similar laws or the law you claim they championed. It has never been brought to the floor of the house or Senate any recieved any significant amount of republican votes. During the primary, Romney got slammed hard for Romney care by republicans and democrats both. In fact, even the democrats had severe issues with the PPACA and it only passed by legislative maneuvering and bribes to democratic senators when the democrats controlled both houses of congress and the administration.
You really should look into what you are repeating before blindly repeating it. Perhaps doing a little sanity check on your reality would be wise to. It certainly doesn't match the pictures you painted which is likely why you find yourself "informing" people so often. The reason they didn't know is because it is made up or presented fictitiousaly.