Medicare fraud is <i>conservatively</i> in the $16 billion+ per year range[1] and a lot of it is easily detectable with data the government already has.<p>Two things about this type of fraud though:<p>1. Detection would require making USG a better place to work for technically savvy people, with things like "budgets" and "not getting publicly humiliated by the world's richest man"<p>2. It's committed by men in suits, so enforcement would require going after the types of people that in reality, Trump & co prefer to pardon... for committing exactly this type of fraud [2]...<p>So, cutting life-saving aid, cancer research, and healthcare benefits it is!<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/how-health-insurers-racked-up-billions-in-extra-payments-from-medicare-advantage-9d4c8a89" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/how-health-insurers-ra...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/health-care-fraudster-philip-esformes-latest-trump-clemency-recipient-rcna175681" rel="nofollow">https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/health-care-f...</a>
People, including the MSM apparently, continue to act as if this is about efficiency and waste. It's clearly not; it's about blowing up agencies and programs that Trump, Musk, and the P2025 gang don't like. And ensuring a further erosion of rights for most of us, with that power (and money) further consolidating into the bank accounts of a select few.
From the article:
> “I don’t think the large defense contractors will be immune from cuts and contract terminations for long,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who noted that the sensitive nature of some defense contract details may require a different approach to cuts. “The defense industry is bracing for budget cuts.”<p>I mean... what point are they actually trying to make? The government has cut big defense spending contracts yet, and that's bad, but they're planning on it soon, so we have to complain now before we miss our window?
Fix the Sentinel program. Every single cut DOGE has enacted to date would be swamped tenfold by just figuring out how to un-fuck the Sentinel program. And frankly unlike all the other shit, that would actually plausibly be within Elon's true wheelhouse.