Medicare's Gumshoes

The government's Medicare mavens are about to get tougher on fraud and abuse.

The Health and Human Services Department appropriations bill that Congress just passed includes more than $100 million in new money for a 1998 assault on squandered Medicare spending--an estimated 14 per cent of what the humongous program lays out.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, held up the nomination of Nancy-Ann Min DeParle to run HHS's Health Care Financing Administration until she promised a bold attack.

Confirmed by the Senate at last on Nov. 10, she says that her goal is to conduct reams of audits to reduce fraud and abuse to 10 per cent. Anything less, she adds, seems out of reach.