SCHIP Is An Abysmal Waste Of Tax Dollars In New Jersey

The Whistler  •  April 1, 2008

The Associated Press sums up the problems:

The audits, which come with state struggling to pay for health care for the poor and uninsured, found:
, Some beneficiaries failed to report all income on NJ FamilyCare applications. Applicants authorize the program to match applications with their tax return, but the state isn’t checking all tax files, allowing people with incomes of $295,000, $186,000 and $177,700 to enroll.
, About 13,000 NJ FamilyCare participants weren’t sent renewal applications, though regulations require eligibility be determined annually. The audit found $43.1 million was paid to these participants from July 2005 to September without knowing if they remain eligible.
, The state failed to try to collect $4.6 million owed to NJ FamilyCare by 16,300 people.
, The state paid $2.1 million from July 2005 to December for medical equipment that should have been paid for by nursing facilities.
, The state is failing to monitor medical equipment providers. For example, it found a provider billed the Medicaid program $30,000 for 48,000 adult incontinence briefs, though the audit found only 10,000 briefs were purchased. Auditors said they’ve referred this and other examples to state criminal investigators.
, The state isn’t properly calculating Medicaid reimbursements. For instance, auditors found the state paid $8,181 for a wheelchair that should have cost $5,705.
, The state spent $6.7 million in state and federal money more than was needed to rent oxygen equipment and buy adult incontinence briefs.
, The state, from July 2005 to December, sent as many as three blood pressure monitors to Medicaid patients, even though many come with warranties and are replaced for free by drug store chains. The audit found the state could have saved $100,000 by denying these claims.
“The audit’s findings are very troubling,” said Assemblyman Richard Merkt, R-Morris. “They call into serious question the state’s competence to run health insurance programs.”

You can say that again, yet even with cautionary tales like the one above the Democrats still want to pour more money into this program and even expand it to include more and more Americans to the point where we’re all covered by it. Or at least paying for it, whether we like it or not.
But I ask: What does forcing Americans to sign up and/or pay for crappy, government-run health care have to do with freedom?
Not much, as far as this observer can tell.

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  • http://Array Bat One

    If a company, any company public or private, kept its books the way the government does, the management of that company would go to prison for accounting fraud.

    In fact, there is very little difference between the accounting practices of Enron, and those of the federal government… particularly when dealing with such unfunded liabilities as Social Security, Medicare, and those of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.

  • http://rotstar.blogspot.com/ LifeTrek

    Of course, no surprise. That is how government runs health care, the same as all bureaucracies. At least until they get bad press and heat like this. Then they tighten the screws and make the system unworkable for doctors, hospitals, and finally patients. Common sense is lost and people die.

    See the history of Medicare for the template of how these programs works.
    DKK

  • docdave

    “They call into serious question the state’s competence to run health insurance programs.”

    Duh, you think? It’s just like how they run other programs e.g. postal but worse.

  • http://dougeefargo.blogspot.com/ dougee

    If a company wasted money like the government does, it would be bankrupt in a minute, and then there would be no one to bail it out for being fiscally irresponsible.

  • robert108

    Since there is no profit motive, there is no incentive for govt enterprise to be efficient. To the contrary, the incentive is for it to become ever larger, less efficient and more costly to the taxpayer.
    If you want govt enterprise to “work”, you have to fundamentally change human nature. I suggest a “dictatorship of the proletariat” until we’re all “re-educated” to care more for “the common good” than we do for our own good and the good of our families.

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