Bloomberg.com: Politics — You actually have to wonder how much of this is going on all over the place with this lack of oversight.
A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said.
The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.
The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina — twin sisters — exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority” were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator.
found by Aric Mackey
I need to start an on demand parts supply store == UBERLOOT
Thank heavens these washers could be purchased from a small honest minority-owned firm like C&D instead of dishonest megacorp like Halliburton.
#28, Mac,
I believe they are. The problems at Walter Reed were a combination of politics, and using the private sector to do a job the Army had always done in the past. It was not pretty, not right, and heads rolled because of it.
This is how government normally works. Reward your friends and punish your enemies.
I have no interest in health insurance. Health care on the other hand is a good thing. Please remember they are differant. Someone please tell me why I need a company between me and my doctor?
#35
Health insurance should be to protect you from catastrophic illness, which you cannot afford to pay.
It also appears to be a buying cooperative, where you supposedly get better prices on health care, but with the bizarre billing systems, it’s hard to understand that.
Finally, it’s also a very expensive and clumsy bill processor. And who needs that?
I don’t understand why health insurance should be so much more complicated and difficult than property and car insurance.
As an analogy, if property insurance was run like health insurance, I would be required to notify my property insurer anytime I do anything to my house, like pest control or air con repair. The insurer would then organize the payment based on my insurance policy, not what I agreed to with the repairman. The repairman than would have to sort out how much he got paid from my insurer and how much he was paid by me, issue me a refund or another bill. Sounds expensive and stupid to me.
How many local guys could handle that at a good price?