Sen. Grassley Asking the IRS How They Are Going To Collect Unpaid Medical Professional Taxes But In the Meantime Back at the Ranch HealthCare Bill Wants IRS to Police Who Has Health Insurance?

Yes you read the headlines correctly, and it does sound very strange to me indeed. If the IRS is up to full power and is having issues finding resources and maybe needing additional technology to collect from the doctors, how in world are they going to be in a position to police health insurance? Does our Congress ever visit the various government departments and maybe look at “hands on” how they function and what technical level their servers and other data tools are? You know Social Security is still operating on COBOL, and I don’t know what level the IRS may be at.

Final Health Care Bill May Roll the IRS Into Policing Whether or Not One Has Health Insurance On Tax Returns

The GOA identified 90 providers, out of how many operate in the US, and this is the basis for all of this? I am sure they are audited like anyone one else either personally or business wise with the IRS too. Frankly I’m more interested in the payments made to the “dead doctors” if you want to jump on a fraud trail and collect as this is out right fraud and obvious. The dead doctors may not know they were still alive and billing in the eyes of CMS, and that is their fault for not making that data connection to verify, but the staff and others who did it are certainly around to hunt down.

Medicare Scam Warnings Were Ignored for Years – Perhaps Due To a Lack of Business Intelligence Software And Updated Servers

Maybe my thinking is off here, but I think going after 47 billion of out and out fraud is a much bigger target to go after and believe there is enough technology to run some queries and track down these folks rather than bother the IRS with what seems to be a small amount of money by comparison. BD

Washington -- A key lawmaker continues to press the Internal Revenue Service about how it intends to collect unpaid taxes from physicians and other medical professionals who keep collecting Medicare and Medicaid dollars.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) said a recent report concluded that federal contractors -- a term that includes physicians collecting public health pay -- collectively owe more than $3 billion in unpaid income taxes from 2008. The Government Accountability Office also has released reports in recent years indicating that such contractors accrue more than $1 billion in unpaid taxes each year, including payroll taxes used to fund Medicare and Medicaid, said Grassley, the ranking Republican member on the Senate Finance Committee.

amednews: Sen. Grassley hunting for unpaid taxes :: Jan. 11, 2010 ... American Medical News