Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Rasmussen Congressional Performance Poll Data

Some Democrats are questioning the most recent Rasmussen Congressional Performance poll findings which included only a 9% favorable rating for Congress.

Here’s a link to Rasmussen’s news release which contains a good bit of data.

I’m betting Rasmussen’s poll withstands scrutiny.

I have a lot of respect for Rasmussen.

Hat tips; Archer 05 and AC

1 comments:

zonga said...

From data in the report:
Most voters (72%) think most members of Congress are more interested in furthering their own political careers. Just 14% believe members are genuinely interested in helping people.

And this from Senate Investigators:
http://www.quackwatch.org/
02ConsumerProtection/dme_fraud.pdf
QUOTE
Senate investigators have uncovered a substantial volume of durable medical equipment (DME) claims that were made by pretending that deceased physicians had prescribed the equipment. [Medicare vulnerabilities: Payments for claims tied to deceased doctors. U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, July 9, 2008]

**From 2000 through 2007, Medicare paid approximately 478,500 claims that contained the Unique Physician Identification Numbers (UPINs) of deceased doctors.

**The payments totaled well over $76.6 million and might exceed $92 million.

**The claims contained the UPINs of between 16,500 and 18,200 deceased physicians.

**At least 51,500 claims, valued at roughly $4 million, contained UPINs of doctors who died ten or more years before the service date on the claim forms.

**In May 2008, the UPIN registry still contained active UPINs for between 2,000 to 2,900 deceased physicians.

The opening statement of subcommittee chairman Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) notes that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was alerted to the UPIN problem in 2001 but failed to take appropriate action. Levin called the failure "inexcusable." /QUOTE

Apparently most people think Congressmen are more interested in building their personal fortunes and power. I cannot argue with that - but how many of us see any good coming out of our elected representatives' actions. It will be interesting to see if this report on massive Medicare fraud goes anywhere.