Medicare fraudsters rake in billions

The Washington Times reports:

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the Justice Department's criminal division, told the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on crime and drugs in May that 3 percent to 10 percent of the $800 billion spent on Medicare and Medicaid each year "is lost to waste, fraud and abuse."

"As government spending on health care for the elderly, disabled and poor increases, so does the opportunity for fraud. Criminals are devising more sophisticated ways of stealing billions of dollars from federally administered health care programs, and they are stealing it faster now than ever before," he told The Washington Times.