Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers?

Don’t want to start an indepth conversation or flaming war, but: How does, what is effectively the worlds largest logistics organisation (the US Military), still require other companies (‘small South Carolina parts suppliers’) to transport a couple of screws across the other side of the world?

Why the hell can’t they do it themselves? If they can move millions of tonnes of war machinery across the world at a moments notice, why the hell can’t they transport a washer the same distance? I don’t get it.

So how much is $998,798 these days? Two, maybe three euros? Big deal… 😀

Six years to catch them and that’s considered oversight?? Software could have caught it at the first occurance and flagged somebody. As for delaying things the only time things would get held up is for stuff like this. If this kind of thing is happening so often that it would hampen the war effort to slow it down then there are REALLY problems.

The other way of looking at it is that our dependency on software and automation is part of what made the fraud so easy to get away with and for so long.

In some companies I have worked for you have to have a purchase order number to make any purchases, it is required tell a human what you are buying, what is for and how much before they will give you a purchase order number,so you can place an order/make a purchase.

It wasn’t computers that caught this fraud, it was human oversight that caught the fraud.

It seems pretty obvious that there was some oversight, after all that’s how it got caught. The thing is not to make it such a bureaucracy that it delays troops from getting their parts and supplies. In my opinion, they should make the penalties for fraud higher, and not focus punishment on a single individual, I think everyone involved should face some legal consequences.

Six years to catch them and that’s considered oversight?? Software could have caught it at the first occurance and flagged somebody. As for delaying things the only time things would get held up is for stuff like this. If this kind of thing is happening so often that it would hampen the war effort to slow it down then there are REALLY problems.

Fraud and the $5 million wheelchair

By Tom Brown
Posted 23 October 2007 @ 08:09 pm EST

One Miami-area medical equipment supplier managed to bill the U.S. government so often for a wheelchair it ended up costing $5 million.

Last year south Florida accounted for 80 percent of the drugs billed across the entire United States for Medicare beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS, even though the region only had about one in 10 of eligible HIV/AIDS patients.

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.

In one case, said Alex Acosta, the U.S. 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.

“The person wasn’t a pharmacist, he was an air conditioner repairman. When we raided the so-called pharmacy where he mixed all these aerosols it was nothing more than a broom closet where all we found was a can of tar,” Acosta told Reuters.

Fraud targeting health-care programs for seniors is not unique to south Florida, where many elderly Americans have retired to end their days in the sunshine.

But the authorities say it’s become a huge and growing industry here.

“If you’re a criminal and your sole goal is to make money, health-care fraud looks increasingly attractive,” said Acosta.

“You can make several million dollars from health-care fraud and the penalties are much less severe than they are for narcotics trafficking,” he added.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees hundreds of billions of dollars in annual Medicare spending, reported last month that south Florida seemed to be playing an unusually large role in the provision of infusion drug therapy — medicines delivered intravenously outside a hospital or nursing home — to Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with HIV or AIDS.

‘A SMALL DENT’

In the second half of last year just three counties — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach — accounted for half the total infusion drug therapy charges nationwide, and nearly 80 percent of the amount of drugs, billed across the entire United States for HIV/AIDS patients on Medicare, the report said.

It said the disparity was even greater before, most notably in the first half of 2005.

At the same time, only about 10 percent of national Medicare beneficiaries with HIV/AIDS lived in the three south Florida counties between July and December 2006.

There was no clinical explanation for the high level of billing in south Florida, according to the report.

In some cases, it said claims submitted by south Florida Medicare providers billing for HIV/AIDS services in the last half of 2006 totaled more than $1 million for each patient.

Local prosecutors have decided to go after the crooks.

Acosta said there was a dedicated team of about 60 people set up to combat Medicare fraud in south Florida, including about two-dozen FBI agents.

He added that his office was prosecuting about one in four health-care fraud cases nationally but complained that more resources were needed for prevention and enforcement.

His own budget for the fight totals less than $1 million per year, Acosta said.

“We could triple the number of cases prosecuted, yet again, but that’s only going to make a small dent,” he said.

Malcolm Sparrow, a fraud expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Management, said Florida had long been identified as “a hotbed of criminal entrepreneurship.”

Medicare fraud in the state, as elsewhere in the U.S. health-care system, is pervasive, he said, but the U.S. government needed to invest more time and money to discover its real extent.

“The rule with any white-collar crime is the well perpetrated cases are not detected. The ones we catch are the stupid, foolish and outrageous,” said Sparrow.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20071023/medicare-fraud.htm

Just pointing out that there needs to be some oversight even if it’s automated. Software could have caught that easily, but only if it’s in place.

It seems pretty obvious that there was some oversight, after all that’s how it got caught. The thing is not to make it such a bureaucracy that it delays troops from getting their parts and supplies. In my opinion, they should make the penalties for fraud higher, and not focus punishment on a single individual, I think everyone involved should face some legal consequences.

I’m talking about stoping the kind of stuff listed above. Catching a price jump from 19 cents to a million dollars wouldn’t be hard for software to notice. Questionable contracts and such is a whole ‘nother can of worms.

In my opinion it is one massive can of worms.

With all due respect a lot more is required than just a little bit of oversight. A review of all procurement is and has been for some time required. That includes the role of congress.

I’m talking about stoping the kind of stuff listed above. Catching a price jump from 19 cents to a million dollars wouldn’t be hard for software to notice. Questionable contracts and such is a whole ‘nother can of worms.

I wasn’t condoning it. 🙂 Just pointing out that there needs to be some oversight even if it’s automated. Software could have caught that easily, but only if it’s in place.

With all due respect a lot more is required than just a little bit of oversight. A review of all procurement is and has been for some time required. That includes the role of congress.

Why is this not surprising.:rolleyes: The entire US armed forces procurement process is rotten to the core.

I wasn’t condoning it. 🙂 Just pointing out that there needs to be some oversight even if it’s automated. Software could have caught that easily, but only if it’s in place.

Why is this not surprising.:rolleyes: The entire US armed forces procurement process is rotten to the core.

If I’m selling stuff and I decide to raise my prices and you keep buying who’s fault is that?

Your tax dollars at work!!