Chairwoman Greene delivers four-page report following the First hearing by the House Sub-Committee on Delivering On Government Efficiency (“House” DOGE, not “Musk” DOGE) - 100's of billions of savings
From here:
Representative Marjorie Greene
“February 19, 2025
WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, following the Delivering On Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) Subcommittee’s first hearing, The War on Waste, Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene released the first Post-Hearing Review and Recommendations.”
Link to the report here:
2.12 Post Hearing Review and Recommendations
“Federal agencies reported an estimated $236 billion in improper payments in 2023 alone, and $2.7 trillion since FY 2003. In addition, the Government Accountability Office estimates the Government could be losing between $233 and $521 billion annually to fraud.”
“The vast majority of improper payments and fraud occurs via large means-tested federal entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) meant to serve elderly, poor or otherwise vulnerable populations. Over the years, trillions of federal payments under these programs have gone to non-deserving beneficiaries,”
There are these problems and savings - I have omitted the “solutions” and narrative for brevity.:
· Problem: Lax or archaic identity verification measures
· Problem: Insufficient data sharing to identify ineligible payees
· Problem: Over-reliance on self-attestation to certify eligibility of applicants
Savings: Lexis-Nexis estimates that asset testing all SSI applicants can save $120 $236 billion annually, expanding asset testing to all Medicaid recipients can save $30-$100 billion annually, and repealing California’s Medicaid waiver to do away with asset testing could save $3.5 billion annually.
· Problem: Use of broad-based categorical eligibility, which enables individuals who falsely certify eligibility for one program to automatically qualify for a slew of other programs.
· Problem: Individuals claiming benefits from multiple states
· Problem: Medicaid “Streamlining” rule that limits to once annually state verification of eligibility, while prohibiting the verification be done in-person or by phone.
Savings: Stewart Whitson estimated that repealing the Medicaid Streamlining Rule could save $164 billion over ten years.
· Problem: Career bureaucrats who do not enforce Administration policies to reduce fraud and improper payments
· Problem: Non-working, able-bodied individuals on Medicaid
· Problem: Repeat offenders who serially defraud federal programs
· Problem: Medicare Contact information is not accurate, resulting in frequent returned mail.
Savings: Lexis-Nexis projects this would save $744 million annually in Medicare alone.
The solutions ad savings require Executive or Legislative action or both to achieve.
Please take a paid subscription to reward me for the thousands of hours of research that go into the thousands of articles I publish - or make a donation of $3 bucks or more for a ko-fi here:
Wow! Yet Democrats howl at the horrible unconstitutionality of exposing this waste. Such an accounting is long overdue, and SHOULD be a bipartisan goal!