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Press Release Published: Mar 21, 2010

I.G. Report Exposes Obama Administration’s Hypocrisy in Claiming Commitment to Reduce Health Care Costs?

“And everybody who’s looked at it says that every single good idea to bend the cost curve and start actually reducing health care costs are in this bill…” – President Obama Speaking yesterday to the House Democratic Caucus

WASHINGTON D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) today questioned the sincerity of President Obama’s self-proclaimed commitment to driving down health care costs as a new Inspector General Report revealed that the Obama Administration had ignored 53 of 63 Inspector General recommendations made last year that would have “the potential to result in cost savings and improvements to program efficiency and effectiveness.”

“President Obama gives new meaning to speaking out of both sides of his mouth,” Issa said.  “On one hand, he claims that Obama-Care will result in significant health care cost savings, on the other, he has ignored more than 50 recommendations that could immediately address waste, fraud and abuse at HHS.  What are the American people to believe – what President Obama says or what he does?”

Ranking Member Issa has sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius highlighting the recommendations contained in the report released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (IG) that identified billions of dollars in savings that could be realized through implementation.  The previous year’s Compendium of Unimplemented Office of Inspector General Recommendations (released May 2009), contained 63 such recommendations.  Disturbingly, only 10 of these 63 significant IG recommendations from 2008 appear to have been either fully implemented by this Administration during its first year in office or deemed no longer relevant by the IG – the other 53 appear again on this year’s report.

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