Who took your 401K Pension Plan money?

With all the talk of tort reform one might begin to believe that attorneys really are the cause of climbing costs in healthcare along with every other economic ill special interests can blame them for. What are some of the reasons for spiraling health care costs? What isn't being talked about is the enormous amount of insurance fraud (including government programs Medicare and Medicaid).

Douglas Dvorak, a Cedar Rapids chiropractor, was convicted on April 22nd 2009 on 22 counts of mail fraud, 11 counts of aggravated identity theft and 6 counts of money laundering for filing fraudulent Medicaid claims from late 2005 to early 2007. He has been sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay more than $71,000 in restitution. This is just a small piece of the fraud that is committed daily against the health care system and if pursued aggressively one has to wonder, how much would healthcare costs drop if we could stop it?

Instead of allowing ourselves to be distracted with talking about whether an injured patient is compensated we should be asking our public officials and the special interest groups that promote reforms what they are doing about health care and pension plan fraud.  Politicians love to talk about anything that doesn't hold them accountable for what they let happen on their watch while sitting in Congress or holding public office. It's time we start to hold them accountable.