Medicare paid $23 million to dead people

Medicare paid $23 million to dead people in 2011, a new audit finds.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services doled out $23 million in benefits to 17,403 deceased beneficiaries in 2011, a new inspector general's audit. The audit was done by cross-referencing Medicare recipients with Social Security death records from 2009 to 2011.

The agency has been in the crossfire recently for its central role administering healthcare.gov, the Obamacare website.

The improper Medicare payments are often the result of fraudsters submitting false claims and assuming the identities of people who are deceased. Just last year, a man was arrested for submitting $2.1 million in bogus Medicare claims -- including 10 claims for beneficiaries who were dead, according to the report.

Other times, a deceased beneficiary's file doesn't include a date of death, leading the agency to continue issuing payments.

Related: Medicare docs face 24% pay cut ... again

While 58% of the improper Medicare payments were under $1,000, 12 were more than $50,000 each. Two payments, for recipients who had died more than a year earlier, exceeded $100,000 each.

The $23 million in improper payments is a tiny sliver of the more than $500 billion the agency paid out in 2011, according to the report.

The inspector general made several recommendations to the agency: improve systems for preventing fraud, find better ways to flag health care providers that submit Medicare claims with a date of service after a person's date of death, and take action to recoup improper payments.

In the report, the agency said it agreed with the recommendations.

Another $29 million in Medicare benefits went to recipients who were living in the United States illegally, according to a separate audit from 2009 to 2011, also issued this week.

And it's not just Medicare payments that are being made to the deceased. The Social Security Administration has also come under fire for this. As of May 2012, approximately 1,546 deceased beneficiaries had received Social Security benefits for months or even years after their deaths -- totaling $31 million in improper payments, according to the most recent audit.

First Published: November 1, 2013: 5:20 PM ET

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Friday Links

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A weekly collection of design, data and interactive links.

Design/Data viz
Information Design | Collection of graphics made by catalogtree
MLB team values | Interactive visualization showing franchise valuations
Bible visualized | Series of images that display different ways to visualize the Bible
Pixelstick | Evolved light painting
Newark map | T.J.S. Landis' birdseye map of Newark, New Jersey in 1895.
Car Mode | A Plea For iPhones To Have A Safer "Car Mode"

Photo/Video
Why I Study Physics | Graduate film project from Xiangjun Shi
Dietrich Wegner | Smoke plume tree houses and homes on stilts by artist
Beauty of Mathematics | A triptych showing how code translates to math and function
Minorville Cover Reveal | Process video showing how the cover was made

Code
WebGL Shaders | Video tutorial by Twitter University
Topcoat | CSS for clean and fast web apps

See last week's links

Have a nice weekend!
@dubly and @talyellin

First Published: November 1, 2013: 12:45 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Berkshire Hathaway's higher earnings miss estimates

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

After the closing bell on Friday, the firm reported $5.05 billion in profits for the third quarter -- up from $3.92 billion a year ago. Much of the boost came from $1.2 billion in investment gains.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500)'s operating earnings, which exclude certain investment gains, were $3.66 billion, up from roughly $3.4 billion a year ago.

Related: Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's best advice

Operating earnings translated to $2,228 per class A share, which missed projections of $2,402 per share from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Berkshire shares had inched higher during the trading day and then dipped after hours, following the news.

Berkshire is a broad-based investment conglomerate whose holdings include everything from Geico insurance to Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to Dairy Queen. It also has stakes in a variety of other large firms.

Earlier this year, Berkshire was part of a consortium along with private equity firm 3G Capital that purchased ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co for $28 billion.

First Published: November 1, 2013: 6:54 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Medicare paid $23 million to dead people

Medicare paid $23 million to dead people in 2011, a new audit finds.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services doled out $23 million in benefits to 17,403 deceased beneficiaries in 2011, a new inspector general's audit. The audit was done by cross-referencing Medicare recipients with Social Security death records from 2009 to 2011.

The agency has been in the crossfire recently for its central role administering healthcare.gov, the Obamacare website.

The improper Medicare payments are often the result of fraudsters submitting false claims and assuming the identities of people who are deceased. Just last year, a man was arrested for submitting $2.1 million in bogus Medicare claims -- including 10 claims for beneficiaries who were dead, according to the report.

Other times, a deceased beneficiary's file doesn't include a date of death, leading the agency to continue issuing payments.

Related: Medicare docs face 24% pay cut ... again

While 58% of the improper Medicare payments were under $1,000, 12 were more than $50,000 each. Two payments, for recipients who had died more than a year earlier, exceeded $100,000 each.

The $23 million in improper payments is a tiny sliver of the more than $500 billion the agency paid out in 2011, according to the report.

The inspector general made several recommendations to the agency: improve systems for preventing fraud, find better ways to flag health care providers that submit Medicare claims with a date of service after a person's date of death, and take action to recoup improper payments.

In the report, the agency said it agreed with the recommendations.

Another $29 million in Medicare benefits went to recipients who were living in the United States illegally, according to a separate audit from 2009 to 2011, also issued this week.

And it's not just Medicare payments that are being made to the deceased. The Social Security Administration has also come under fire for this. As of May 2012, approximately 1,546 deceased beneficiaries had received Social Security benefits for months or even years after their deaths -- totaling $31 million in improper payments, according to the most recent audit.

First Published: November 1, 2013: 5:20 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Friday Links

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A weekly collection of design, data and interactive links.

Design/Data viz
Information Design | Collection of graphics made by catalogtree
MLB team values | Interactive visualization showing franchise valuations
Bible visualized | Series of images that display different ways to visualize the Bible
Pixelstick | Evolved light painting
Newark map | T.J.S. Landis' birdseye map of Newark, New Jersey in 1895.
Car Mode | A Plea For iPhones To Have A Safer "Car Mode"

Photo/Video
Why I Study Physics | Graduate film project from Xiangjun Shi
Dietrich Wegner | Smoke plume tree houses and homes on stilts by artist
Beauty of Mathematics | A triptych showing how code translates to math and function
Minorville Cover Reveal | Process video showing how the cover was made

Code
WebGL Shaders | Video tutorial by Twitter University
Topcoat | CSS for clean and fast web apps

See last week's links

Have a nice weekend!
@dubly and @talyellin

First Published: November 1, 2013: 12:45 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Berkshire Hathaway's higher earnings miss estimates

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

After the closing bell on Friday, the firm reported $5.05 billion in profits for the third quarter -- up from $3.92 billion a year ago. Much of the boost came from $1.2 billion in investment gains.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500)'s operating earnings, which exclude certain investment gains, were $3.66 billion, up from roughly $3.4 billion a year ago.

Related: Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's best advice

Operating earnings translated to $2,228 per class A share, which missed projections of $2,402 per share from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Berkshire shares had inched higher during the trading day and then dipped after hours, following the news.

Berkshire is a broad-based investment conglomerate whose holdings include everything from Geico insurance to Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to Dairy Queen. It also has stakes in a variety of other large firms.

Earlier this year, Berkshire was part of a consortium along with private equity firm 3G Capital that purchased ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co for $28 billion.

First Published: November 1, 2013: 6:54 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Next year's 401(k) contribution limit: still $17,500

You can't contribute more than $17,500 to your 401(k) next year

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The IRS said there wasn't a big enough increase in the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, to lead the agency to raise the contribution cap for 401(k)s, 403(b)s, most 457 plans and the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan for 2014.

For the past two years, the IRS has boosted contribution limits by $500 due to rising inflation.

Related: IRS warns of new phone scam

The catch-up contribution limit, which is the amount of tax-deferred money employees over 50 can contribute to their retirement plans in addition to the $17,500 that any employee can contribute -- also remains unchanged at $5,500.

The contribution limit for IRAs will stay the same as well, at $5,500 per year. But more people will be able to qualify for a full tax deduction when they make contributions.

Starting in 2014, the deduction will phase out out for single taxpayers who participate in a workplace retirement plan and have income between $60,000 and $70,000. That's up from this year's range of $59,000 to $69,000. For joint filers where the spouse making the IRA contribution also participates in a workplace retirement plan, the deduction will phase out at incomes of $96,000 to $116,000 -- up from $95,000 to $115,000.

Related: Get the first decade of retirement right

It will also be easier to qualify for the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit of up to $2,000, aimed to help low and middle-income retirement savers. The credit will now be granted to taxpayers with income of less than $60,000 for married couples -- up from $59,000 last year.

First Published: October 31, 2013: 5:11 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Fannie Mae sues Wall St banks over Libor

Fannie Mae says the alleged Libor fraud was "willful and wanton."

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The government-backed firm filed a lawsuit Thursday against nine major banks over their alleged manipulation of Libor, a key interest-rate benchmark.

The suit comes less than a week after a settlement in which JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) agreed to pay Fannie and its sister company, Freddie Mac, $4 billion to settle allegations that it misrepresented mortgage securities sold to the firms.

Fannie says the banks' alleged manipulation of Libor caused it approximately $800 million in losses.

Four banks -- Barclays, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland and Rabobank -- have already reached settlements with the Justice Department and other regulators on the issue, paying more than $3.6 billion in fines. A handful of brokers and traders have also been charged individually, with more cases expected.

Libor rates are created through a process overseen by the British Bankers' Association, an industry group, in which a group of large banks are polled on their borrowing costs in various currencies over various time periods. Their responses are then averaged to produce rates that are used as benchmarks for trillions of dollars' worth of derivatives and other financial products, including car loans and adjustable-rate mortgages.

In the four settlements reached so far, the banks have admitted that traders engineered fraudulent Libor submissions to benefit their derivatives positions. The firms also admitted to lowballing their Libor quotes around the time of the financial crisis to appear stronger and more creditworthy.

The other banks named in the Fannie Mae lawsuit are Deutsche Bank (DB), Credit Suisse (CS), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan.

Related: Bank of America warns of fresh U.S. lawsuit

The suit claims that Fannie Mae lost money on mortgages and interest-rate swaps with the defendants when certain Libor rates were set artificially low. The British Bankers' Association is also named in the suit.

"Fannie Mae filed this action to recover losses it suffered as a result of the defendants' manipulation of Libor," the firm said in a statement. "We have a responsibility to be good stewards of our resources."

The banks either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

Freddie Mac filed a similar lawsuit in March against more than a dozen banks. A variety of other plaintiffs, ranging from individual investors to the brokerage firm Charles Schwab (SCHW, Fortune 500) to the City of Baltimore, have also claimed Libor-related losses.

Fannie and Freddie have been overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency since their $187 billion bailout in 2008, prompted by their massive losses on mortgage securities. They have since returned to profitability, paying substantial dividends to the Treasury Department.

The FHFA sued 18 banks back in 2011 for allegedly misrepresenting risky mortgage-backed securities, and has settled with four so far.

First Published: October 31, 2013: 4:48 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

China's factories solid as recovery takes hold

HONG KONG (CNNMoney)

China's official purchasing managers' index topped analyst expectations, increasing to 51.4 in October from 51.1 in September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Any number over 50 indicates an acceleration in the sector.

A separate PMI measure released Friday by global bank HSBC came in at 50.9, a seven-month high driven by strong output growth.

The official government gauge is heavily weighted toward large enterprises, while the HSBC survey taps a smaller sample size and places greater emphasis on smaller firms.

HSBC economist Hongbin Qu said that the manufacturing expansion was also driving improvements in the labor market.

"This ... should support private consumption growth in the coming months," he said. "China is on track for a gradual growth recovery."

Related story: 3 mysteries looming over China's economy

China showed slower growth in the first half of this year, initially sparking worries that it may not meet its 7.5% growth target for the year. Those fears have begun to ease, with the HSBC report adding to a round of positive economic data.

Related story: China's Craigslist soars in IPO

However, some economists are cautioning that the economic recovery may lose momentum after November, when the Chinese government holds a party meeting.

Nomura economist Zhiwei Zhang said Friday that despite the positive factory data, the recovery is "unsustainable." Nomura forecasts GDP growth will slow to 7.5% for the final quarter of 2013 and 6.9% for 2014.

First Published: October 31, 2013: 10:36 PM ET

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Obamacare deadlines clarified

Customers who enroll in coverage by March 31 won't be on the hook for a "shared responsibility payment."

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

That's the 2014 deadline to apply for coverage and not face tax penalties under an extension announced late Monday by the Obama administration.

The six-week delay resolves two conflicting dates: the open enrollment window extended beyond the deadline to obtain coverage. The extension does not involve people covered under employer health plans or government coverage such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Coverage through the health exchanges begins Jan. 1, but customers don't have to enroll in a plan that quickly. The Affordable Care Act allows individuals to go without coverage for up to three months at a time. It also specifies a mid-month application deadline for coverage to begin the next month.

Related: Obamacare pricier for individual buyers

The law says the open enrollment window is open through March 31. But if individuals waited until that day to register, their coverage wouldn't begin until May, long after the three-month clock that started Jan. 1 reached zero.

That meant a Feb. 15 application deadline.

The extension removes this confusion.

Related: Silicon Valley could have built a better site

Faced with a malfunctioning website and confusion over the deadline, the agency running the insurance marketplace said it would give customers the extra time.

The penalty is known as the "shared responsibility payment." Someone who is required to but does not have health coverage in 2014 would pay it in their taxes due April 15, 2015. It is $95 or 1% of income, whichever is greater, and increases quickly -- to at least $325 for 2015 and $695 for 2016.

First Published: October 29, 2013: 2:43 PM ET

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