Tag Archives: health care spending

Should Obamacare Evolve Into “Medicare for All?”

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Federal agents storm a Los Angeles hospital engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is rampant, raising the question of whether "Medicare for All" is a good idea. [Credit: LA Times]

Fed­er­al agents storm a Los Ange­les hos­pi­tal engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is ram­pant, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether “Medicare for All” is a good idea. [Cred­it: LA Times]

Estill Mitts, a 68-year-old from Los Ange­les, came up with an enter­pris­ing idea some years back that made him mil­lions: pay home­less peo­ple from the city’s “Skid Row” dis­trict who were eli­gi­ble for Medicare or Med­ic­aid to check into local hos­pi­tals, even if they didn’t need to be there.

Set­ting up shop at a faux med­ical facil­i­ty that he dubbed the ”Assess­ment Cen­ter,” Mitts hired what he called “stringers” to pay home­less peo­ple small sums of mon­ey to go to one of three med­ical facil­i­ties that were in on the scam – City of Angels, LA Met­ro­pol­i­tan and Tustin Hos­pi­tal and Med­ical Cen­ter – where they were admit­ted whether or not they actu­al­ly required care. The hos­pi­tals billed Medicare or Med­ic­aid for the inpa­tient stays and made kick­back pay­ments to Mitts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →