The Government Accountability Office (GAO) ranked Medicare on it’s list of high financial risks facing government agencies, making an estimate of $44 billion in improper payments made by the program in 2012.
$44 billion is roughly the same amount of cuts the sequester package is set to cut out of federal spending in 2013.
The risk list is updated for each session of Congress with a goal of targeting waste, fraud and abuse. The recently released GAO report claims in 2012 that Medicare “covered more than 49 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries at an estimated cost of $555 billion, and reported improper payments estimated to be more than $44 billion.”
The GAO has designated Medicare a high-risk area since 1990.
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