Noem Advocates Obama Agenda on Medicare Fraud

Kristi Noem has updated her issues page, piling some new blurbs about her support for social programs at the top of her GOP talking points. Among the substanceless, specifics-less suggestions, Noem opines that we must "work harder" to curb fraud and abuse in Medicare.

Isn't that exactly what President Barack Obama is doing?

1. President Obama is spending $9 million to educate old folks to prevent fight Medicare fraud. (Hey! Where's South Dakota's piece of that pie?)
   
2. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will adopt new billing software that will catch fraud before the money leaves Uncle Sam's cash box. The software, much like what credit card companies use to protect you from unusual activity on your Mastercard, could save over $20 billion a year. This anti-fraud measure was part of the Small Business Lending Act, sponsored by Democrat Barney Frank, voted for by Democrat Nancy Pelosi, and signed into law by Democrat and President Barack Obama. Remarkably Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against this bill, along with Senator Thune and most Republicans.
   
3. President Obama's AG Holder and HHS Sec. Sebelius announced the Medicare Fraud Strike Force's biggest bust yet this summer when they announced charges against 94 tricky docs and other Medicare swindlers.
4. CMS is proposing a rule to classify Medicare providers by risk, do background checks and fingerprinting on the high-risk group, and suspend payment to providers upon credible allegation of fraud. But that rule proposal comes from President Obama's health care reform law, so surely Noem wants to repeal that anti-fraud effort.
   
5. President Obama also signed the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act last July to fight fraud against all government agencies, including Medicare. Herseth Sandlin got with the program and voted with Pelosi on this one... as did everyone else in Congress.
   

"Work harder" to fight Medicare fraud, Mrs. Noem? Sounds like President Obama is already at least five policy steps ahead of you.
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Bonus Health Care Refudiation: Perhaps Noem could work harder to stop scaring seniors. The Kaiser Family Foundation's September 2010 Health Tracking Poll finds 30% of senior citizens still think the new law includes "a government panel to make decisions about end‐of‐life care for people on Medicare"—i.e., Sarah Palin's death panels. Health care reform includes no death panels. Senator Charles Grassley said so... last year.
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Update 2010.10.14: Obama's G-Men catch another 73 Armenian gangsters who allegedly set up a ring of at least 118 bogus clinics and tried cheating Medicare out of $163 million. President Obama keeps working harder....