Career Politician Waxman To Retire

After cashing $4,300,000 worth of welfare checks Mr. Henry Waxman will retire next month from his position in Congress.  

So what was Waxman all about?

File Under: Medicaid Fraud

The Texas Tribune reports on the most recent case of Medicaid fraud:

State spending on orthodontic services spiraled out of control: Between 2003 and 2010, Texas Medicaid payments for orthodontic services grew by more than 3,000 percent — from $6.5 million to $220.5 million — while program enrollment only grew 33 percent.

Just the state being swindled out of millions of your dollars, again.

Funny that you never hear about Starbucks squandering billions of dollars which lead to a 3,000% jump in coffee prices.  The people who serve you coffee seem to be better stewards of resources then the people who collect the taxes.    

Who Collects That 3% Medicare Tax?

We've known for a long time exactly who pays the Medicare tax but thanks to newly released Medicare payment information we are able to confirm the primary collectors of Medicare taxes, namely doctors and medical equipment suppliers.  

I've written before about Medicaid and Medicare taxes being a subsidy for the U.S. healthcare industry.  Thanks to Bloomberg.com for providing a great chart breaking down the primary Medicare benefactors, check it out here.

The top five provider specialties haul in the bulk of the Medicare tax dollars.  The pack is led by internal medicine specialists which cost Medicare almost $9 billion in 2012.  Medicare taxpayers are supporting over 90,000 six-figure salary jobs among internal medicine doctors alone.

In addition to the run of the mill wealthy ($100,000 jobs) Medicare is supplying about 4,000 doctors with a cool million dollar annual paycheck.

Ask yourself who receives the greatest benefit from the Medicare tax?    

Medicaid is a Subsidy for the Healthcare Industry

The Weekly Standard published a report from the U.S. Senate Budget Committee about "welfare" recipients.  They wrote:

Food stamps and Medicaid make up a large--and growing--chunk of the more than 100 million recipients. "Among the major means tested welfare programs, since 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011...

But 54 million is a highly misleading figure.  It should be clear that sick people are not the primary benefactors of medicaid.