Idle musings...

In his speech the other night, the President echoed sentiments expressed by at least a half-dozen of his predecessors, suggesting that huge amounts of money could/would/should be recovered by eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse" in Medicare, which a few minutes of Googling suggests to be about $60 billion annually (according to the Senate's Special Committee on Aging).

Knowing the propensity of politicians to express vaguely appealing sentiments in public whenever their lips move, I conclude that ultimately, no matter what, no matter who is in power, it is the very nature of Medicare to "accept" some degree of ongoing overhead due to fraud.

This leads me to wonder: What percentage loss to ongoing fraud and abuse is "acceptable" in the private sector? (By "acceptable" I mean fraud/abuse/etc. that's going to happen despite reasonable best efforts to prevent it.)

Cheers...

Losing efficiency...

I made progress today, in the cleaning department, but I get the feeling that the further along I get, the less progress I make (along the lines of what occurs when you put a steady amount of overtime when working a 40-hour week; as the weeks go by, less work gets done per hour).

The kids and grandkids came over around 5:30 pm; the grandkids are spending the night. Mathew seems intent on not falling asleep! (We'll see about that!)

Cheers...