Des Moines Register: Problem Is Bigger Than 'Shopping Skills' Medicare and Medicaid cost taxpayers a fortune. Want to know where some of your money went? To Franklin Nwankpa - to take Des Moines' kids to the movies. He has been convicted of defrauding taxpayers of nearly $140,000. ... Billing the government for health services can be a gold mine for individuals and businesses. Whether it's promising Uncle Sam will pay for your scooter chair or calling a trip to the theater "skills teaching," some want the government to cough up money and ask no questions. And sometimes the government does exactly that (5/18).

The Lund Report: Oregon Can't Afford to Pass Health Insurance Exchange Oregon lawmakers are debating SB99, a bill that would create an insurance marketplace or "exchange" in 2014. ... So why will most Oregonians do their shopping elsewhere if this bill is passed? SB 99 preserves the complex maze we currently have by keeping an "external" or "dual" marketplace. Insurance companies will use "free" market tactics to weaken the exchange's purchasing power so they can peddle their lemons to cherry-picked consumers (Drs. Kris Alman and Mike Siegel, 5/17).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.