Drug Abusers Get Narcotics Through Medicare, Senators Say
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Disabled and elderly drug abusers may be costing taxpayer-funded Medicare almost $150 million a year by convincing doctors to write prescriptions for oxycodone and other narcotics, a government report found.
About 170,000 patients in Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled, acquired often-abused drugs from at least five doctors each in 2008, according to a report issued today by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, and the panel’s senior Republican, Scott Brown of Massachusetts.