New federal task force will target healthcare fraud

Obama administration officials launched a high-level task force to use technology to help detect and prevent healthcare fraud. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also directed federal investigators and prosecutors to expand special strike forces to Detroit and Houston, where "erratic" billing data suggest high levels of fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid programs. The announcement comes a week after the trustees who monitor Medicare's finances predicted that the trust fund that pays hospital bills for elderly patients will be depleted by 2017.