(WASHINGTON, DC) – On Tuesday, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) highlighted a bipartisan Medicaid reform bill authored by Congressmen Larry Bucshon, M.D. (R-IN) during the House Republican Leadership press conference.  The bill rids the Medicaid program of fraudulent actors and saves taxpayers an estimated $15 million.

“I want to highlight a bill that we are bringing up this week that the Majority Leader just talked about, and that’s a bill that protects taxpayers by Dr. Larry Bucshon…Under the law if you’re found guilty of fraud in the Medicaid program in any state you are not supposed to be able to participate in other states, yet it’s going on. Again nearly 300 providers that have been found guilty of defrauding tax payers are still operating in the Medicaid program in other states. That’s got to end and under the bill that we are bringing forward by Dr. Bucshon that actually will end…This will save millions of dollars for taxpayers who are tired of seeing their money, their taxpayer dollars being wasted in Washington.” – Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA); 03/01/2016

Full text of the Majority Whip’s comments is provided below and footage can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/Y0bRjpFdCZk.

“I want to highlight a bill that we are bringing up this week that the Majority Leader just talked about, and that’s a bill that protects taxpayers by Dr. Larry Bucshon.

“If you look at the Medicaid program, within HHS their Office of Inspector General identified that nearly 300 providers in Medicaid have defrauded the taxpayer, whether it’s double billing, phantom billing, in some cases billing for more than 24 hours in a day, but ultimately leading to millions and millions of dollars of fraud in the Medicaid program.

“Under the law if you’re found guilty of fraud in the Medicaid program in any state you are not supposed to be able to participate in other states, yet it’s going on.

“Again nearly 300 providers that have been found guilty of defrauding tax payers are still operating in the Medicaid program in other states. That’s got to end and under the bill that we are bringing forward by Dr. Bucshon that actually will end. 

“This will save millions of dollars for taxpayers who are tired of seeing their money, their taxpayer dollars being wasted in Washington. And here you’ve got a case where the Office of Inspector General has actually identified over 200 cases where this is going on. This bill will finally make that stop.”

BACKGROUND ON H.R. 3716:

H.R. 3716, the Ensuring Access to Quality Medicaid Providers Act, strengthens the Medicaid program and saves taxpayer dollars by ridding the program of bad actors.

THE PROBLEM:
The Office of the Inspector General at HHS has previously found that 12 percent of terminated providers were participating in a State Medicaid programs as of January 1, 2012, after the same providers were terminated for reasons of fraud, integrity, or quality from another State Medicaid programs.

THE SOLUTION:

 H.R. 3716, the Ensuring Access to Quality Medicaid Providers Act, ensures that providers terminated from Medicare or a state Medicaid program for reasons of fraud, integrity, or quality, are also terminated from all other state Medicaid programs.

SAVING $15 MILLION IN TAXPAYER DOLLRS:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 3716 will reduce federal outlays $15 million over the 10 year budget window, by eliminating Medicaid payments to fraudulent providers. H.R. 3716 would also save State Medicaid programs several million dollars over the same timeframe, but CBO does not estimate state-specific savings.

MEDICAID FACTS:

• Medicaid is estimated to cover 83 million people this year – far more than the 58 million covered by Medicare.
• CMS’ Office of the Actuary projects that by 2023, there will be nearly as many non-disabled adults relying on Medicaid as young children.