Grassley asks HHS to probe whether Castro regime is defrauding Medicare

Grassley asks HHS to probe whether Castro regime is defrauding Medicare
By Julian Pecquet - 03/02/11 12:45 PM ET

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) grilled federal officials Wednesday about
the Cuban government's possible ties to rampant Medicare fraud in south
Florida.

Grassley asked Health and Human Services officials testifying before the
Senate Finance Committee whether they were aware of any evidence that
Cuba might be involved in fraud schemes against the government program.

He asked HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson to look into any evidence
that Cuban officials have been "facilitating" Medicare fraud and to get
back to him after coordinating with the Justice and State departments.

Levinson said he'd "have to get back to you on the particulars."

"We wouldn't comment on any particular case in a public forum," Levinson
told The Hill after the hearing.

Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services released a list
of the Top 10 healthcare fraud fugitives, who have defrauded the
government of $124 million combined. Seven of the 10 fugitives were of
Cuban origin, and six of those are now believed to be hiding on the island.

During the hearing, Grassley referenced a report from the Institute for
Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami raising
questions about the involvement of Fidel Castro's regime.

The report paraphrases a "high-level former intelligence official with
the Cuban Government" as saying that there are "strong indications that
the Cuban Government is directing some of these Medicare frauds as part
of a desperate attempt to obtain hard currency."

"The source notes that the Cuban Government is also assisting (while not
directing) other instances of Medicare fraud — providing perpetrators
with information with which to commit fraud," wrote the report's author,
research associate Vanessa Lopez. "The former Cuban official goes on to
say that, in the instances where the Cuban Government is not directing
or facilitating the fraud, it does provide Cuba as a place for fugitives
to flee. This gives the Castro regime a convenient and care-free way to
raise hard currency."

Furthermore, according to this source, "any fugitive in Cuba needs to
pay astronomically large sums of money to the Cuban Government in order
to enter and remain in the country."

Some Cuban-American groups have begun to ask for a congressional probe
of Cuba's potential ties to Medicare fraud.

Grassley stopped short of that Wednesday, but his comments raised the
level of attention a notch.

"I'm just now getting into this, so I don't really know what the next
step is," Grassley told The Hill. "But at least there's one step going
on now in regard to the written response that I got from [HHS]."

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/147033-grassley-asks-hhs-to-probe-cuba-ties-to-medicare-fraud