U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, organized a town hall meeting on short notice at Holmes Beach City Hall Sept. 10 and arrived to a full house.
He gave a short talk on the federal budget, but dedicated the bulk of the hour-plus meeting to addressing issues with constituents.
Buchanan answered questions about fair trade, jobs and business credit, immigration, offshore and Everglades oil drilling, taxes, home and healthcare insurance, social security and Medicare, while avoiding questions about politics and the upcoming presidential campaigns.
Then one speaker really got the congressman’s attention. Charlie Cawein of Anna Maria challenged Buchanan to do more to resolve the $60 billion-$90 billion cost of Medicare billing fraud.
Cawein said he wrote to newspapers detailing the problems with Medicare providers, as well as U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Buchanan, and only Buchanan responded.
Cawein retired from a hospital administrator’s job in New York to Anna Maria, only to find more than $25,000 in fraudulent charges on he and his wife’s Medicare account. Citing poor results from the Medicare Florida hotline regarding such problems, he suggested Congress should spend $4 billion to hire 100,000 auditors for $50,000 per year to put an end to Medicare fraud.
Medicare crooks are being paid within 30 days and they then move on, he said.
Since Medicare client summaries are delivered quarterly, “the crooks have their money before we know about it,” he said.
“I see there are a lot of things that could be done,” he told Buchanan.
“Since I have this knowledge, can I help get seniors together so we can identify this?”
Buchanan invited Cawein and wife Ruth, a retired nurse, to Washington, D.C., to appear on a hearing panel for a House subcommittee on health for the ways and means committee.
The Caweins accepted the invitation.
The town hall meeting continued on a mostly high note, with some political posturing by the audience, deftly avoided by Buchanan.
“I’m not here for politics,” he said, to another of many rounds of applause.
Buchanan said he would work to have Social Security removed from the budget revenue stream for general funds and to reinstate the lock-box on spending for other expenses.
He clearly stated he will work for compromise in D.C., and acknowledged his efforts will continue on jobs, spending, limiting tax cuts for big business and, with the help of the Caweins, Medicare fraud.
In closing, Buchanan said, “My focus is, for the next 18 months, I’m going to push a constitutional balanced budget amendment. I’m going to focus on jobs and the economy. And I’m going to do everything I can to work together on a bipartisan basis for Americans and America.
“Because, as I said earlier on, I’m very fortunate, my parents worked in a factory all their life, I’m one of six kids. And this country’s given me an incredible opportunity. I want to make sure these same opportunities exist for our kids and grandkids.
“We’ve got to get people back to work and get our financial house back in order.”