Hatch to Hold Finance Hearing on Improper Payments

WASHINGTON – Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will convene a hearing on Thursday, October 1, to examine how improper payments, including overpayments and underpayments, plague the federal bureaucracy and divert scarce resources away from their proper use for vital programs.  The hearing, titled “Improper Payments: Challenges and Opportunities,” will take place at 10:00 a.m. in Room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the government-wide improper payment estimate significantly increased from $105 billion in 2013 to $124.7 billion in 2014—an increase of almost $19 billion. The hearing will focus on three programs that make up this increase: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which accounted for 76 percent of all improper payments in fiscal year 2014.

“Every single taxpayer dollar that is misallocated takes precious resources away from programs meant to serve our nation's most vulnerable,” Hatch said.  “Congress owes it to taxpayers and beneficiaries to address fragmentation, overlap and duplication in the federal bureaucracy that lead to improper payments on a bipartisan basis, and this hearing will give Committee members the opportunity to examine solutions to do so.”

The witness for Thursday’s hearing is:

• The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, United States Government Accountability Office, Washington, DC 

For media inquiries and additional information, including webcast and testimony details, please visit: http://finance.senate.gov/hearings.

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