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ProSense

(116,464 posts)
Tue Jun 19, 2012, 12:45 PM Jun 2012

Mitt Romney: Let's make it easier to commit Medicare fraud than to register to vote

Mitt Romney: Let's make it easier to commit Medicare fraud than to register to vote

by Joan McCarter

There was a point to Mitt Romney's amazement at the touch screen ordering system at WaWa that made news yesterday. It was caught by Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog in this longer clip. What Romney was really saying was that it should be as easy for a Medicare or Medicaid provider to change addresses as it is to order a sandwich. Here's the whole thing:

And here's the relevant bit of the transcript on physicians:

I met an optometrist this morning ... and this optometrist wanted to change his billing address. He'd moved his office from one side of town to the other—same zip code, same post office—but he wanted to change his address. He got a form from the federal government—this is so he can get reimbursement from the federal government for the services he provides for the poor and seniors. [...]

This takes several months, during which time he's not getting the checks for the work he's doing for people who need his care. That's how government works.

Then I was at a Wawa's. I went to order a sandwich. You press the little touch-tone keypad, all right? You just touch that, and, you know, that sandwich comes, you just touch this, touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, there's your sandwich. It's amazing! People in the private sector have learned how to compete! It's time to bring some competition to the federal government and get it smaller, and respond to the customers, which are you!

That's how big, slow government works. You have to fill out a 33-page form (which, see update, is actually a two page form) just to change your address. But you can get a sandwich just by touching a few buttons, Romney says, and why can't the federal government be like WaWa? You push a few buttons and that's it. Well, as Steve M. points out, you can change your address simply by filling out a form online with the post office.

That's if you're not a Medicare or Medicaid provider who is getting taxpayer dollars for providing care to, as Romney says, the poor and seniors. They have to fill out 33 pages of forms because of that other thing Republicans like to scream about: fraud. Physicians have to fill out a sort of complicated form when they move offices to show where and how they are seeing patients that the government is paying them to care for. So that they don't, you know, steal taxpayer money.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/19/1101272/-Mitt-Romney-Let-s-make-it-easier-to-commit-Medicare-fraud-than-to-register-to-vote


So Mitt wants to run the government like "WaWas"? (http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002825141)

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan campaign on the freedom of living without Medicare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002825160
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Mitt Romney: Let's make it easier to commit Medicare fraud than to register to vote (Original Post) ProSense Jun 2012 OP
Typical GOP Tactic Turbineguy Jun 2012 #1
he is an idiot surrounded by morans madrchsod Jun 2012 #2
yeah, let's fire more government workers! unblock Jun 2012 #3

Turbineguy

(37,331 posts)
1. Typical GOP Tactic
Tue Jun 19, 2012, 12:53 PM
Jun 2012

Compare two unrelated things, take the simple one, so morons understand it and apply to complex problem.

Maybe all those tax loopholes for the rich make things too complicated. Filling out your tax form should be like ordering a sandwich!

Oh, wait, never mind.

unblock

(52,227 posts)
3. yeah, let's fire more government workers!
Tue Jun 19, 2012, 01:10 PM
Jun 2012

never mind the particulars, the private sector can nearly always provide a better service for a more LIMITED clientele willing to pay a higher price.

the private sector can do a damn find job delivering a letter in two day for $11 of whatever in part because they don't bother providing service to remote villages in alaska, say, and in part because, well, they're getting paid $11 per letter! what a lousy job the us postal service does for $0.45! let's shut down some post offices! hey, they're providing saturday delivery for an extra $0.00, let's scrap that!

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