Here is a link to watch the 60 Minutes report. http://www.fancast.com/tv/60-Minutes/97707/1307867823/60-Minutes%2C-10.25.09/videos
The section on Medicare Fraud starts around 2:30 and runs about 14 minutes to 16:30.
There are a lot of people who point to Medicare’s low administrative cost as a positive, but $60 Billion/year in fraud is a high price to pay for low overhead. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising since Medicare is a public system with taxpayers as a backstop, there is no financial incentive for anybody to stop the fraud.
I agree Craig that low admin is not always a good thing. I read a good quote once that said something like “low admin costs are not a good thing. Ineffecient admin costs are a bad thing.”
I also want to add that Medicare typically has higher claims since you have to be 65+ or disabled to be on Medicare. If it costs two different companies $100 to process a claim, of course Medicare’s admin cost will be lower because the claim they paid is likely for a much higher dollar amount.