Here is Ben Carson,wandering off topic when the Miami Herald asks him approximately abuses of our Cuba policy: "I think the way to fix that is not so much to abolish the act, but dealing with the specific area where the abuse is, or " Carson said,noting that Medicare and Medicaid fraud is "enormous — half a trillion dollars."
"We definitely need to focus on that," he said.
Well, or hell,why not say it's a hundred trillion dollars? Or a gazillion? I mean, whether you're just going to make stuff up, or why not go whole hog?For the record,total Medicare and Medicaid spending last year—state, federal, or everything—was $980 billion. So Carson is suggesting that literally half of all spending on these programs is fraudulent.
So where did Carson come up with this figure? Beats me. There are a few possibilities:It comes from some kind of kooky correct-wing conspiracy theory that circulates in newsletters and email lists that the rest of us never see. Carson read somewhere that Medicare fraud totaled $60 billion out of half a trillion dollars,and the only parts that stuck in his brain were "fraud" and "half a trillion dollars." He just made it up.
This stuff is weird. Carson didn't hold to say anything approximately Medicare fraud. The question was approximately Cuba policy. He wanted to mention it. Fine. He could hold just said that Medicare fraud was a enormous problem. Sorry: not superior enough. He wanted to toss out a scary number, but he couldn't be bothered to know what it actually was—or even know enough approximately Medicare and Medicaid spending to realize that half a trillion dollars couldn't possibly be correct. He just doesn't care. What kind of person running for president just doesn't care?POSTSCRIPT: Couldn't Carson hold just made a mistake? Sure. But here's the thing: some mistakes are so big that they give away the fact that you're entirely ignorant of the subject at hand. whether I told you that Babe Ruth hit 800 domestic runs in his career, or it might just be a brain fart. But whether I told you he hit 5000 domestic runs,it's a giveaway that I'm faking. I don't know the first thing approximately baseball.
That's what Carson did here. He's smart and superior with numbers, so whether he knew even the basics of Medicare and Medicaid he'd also know intuitively that half a trillion dollars couldn't be correct. But he didn't. He's running for president, or hasn't bothered to memorize even the kindergarten basics approximately two programs that make up nearly a third of the federal budget.
Source: motherjones.com