GAO: Medicare losing $48 billion; 10% of all Medicare payments are fraudulent

Politico reports:

Nearly 10 percent of all Medicare payments are fraudulent or otherwise improper, and the government isn’t doing enough to stop them.

That’s the conclusion of a Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday. The report, issued at the request of a House subcommittee investigating Medicare and Medicaid fraud, estimates that the federal government is losing $48 billion on the improper payments – a significant amount for a program that “is fiscally unsustainable in the long term” unless action is taken.

Just a reminder, $48 billion is a much larger number than all the profits of the health insurance companies companies.