Two Medicare and Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Laws

Law One - In any general government program, such as Medicare and Medicaid, fraud and abuse will invariably consume 10% of funds.

Law Two - Controlling 10% of fraud and abuse costs of any general government program will always cost more than controlling the first 90%.

Comment

These two laws are variations of Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong will go wrong when more than $1 trillion of annual dollars involving more than 120 million Americans (Medicare 52 million, Medicaid 68.5 million) recipients are involved. The temptations for fraud and abuse are inevitable because of vacuousness and vastness of the bureaucracy, the vulnerability and vapidity of the victims, and the venality and variability of the violators.