TennCare--"Paging Dr. Fraud...."

You know that big financial sucking sound that our lovely TennCare program makes from our state budget? And how all these folks are crying foul because their taxpayer-funded insurance program is in danger of being drastically reduced or even eliminated? Here's why:

It seems that almost 10,000 enrollees have "questionable (translation: fraudulent) pharmaceutical practices" and we're just now deciding to see if they can explain themselves.

"With prescription drug costs spiraling, TennCare wants to know why 8,000 enrollees have at least three drug claims a month at pharmacies more than 100 miles from their homes. Another 1,400 letters are on their way to folks who used more than three pharmacies or got prescriptions from five or more doctors."

Did you catch that? ".....At pharmacies more than 100 miles from their home". Now, we all know that you can't drive 1.0 mile in the USA without meeting a Walgreen's (heck, there's 3 within approximately 4 miles of our house). But that's about like me driving to a Walgreen's on the OTHER side of Jackson, TN to get my prescription filled. Hmmm.......I'm sure there's a perfectly legitimate excuse, right?

This is precisely the problem with government assistance of ANY kind. If it was policed to the point where 100% verifiable and legitimate cases were the only one getting it, fine. But there's something VERY wrong with people paying for groceries with food stamps and then loading them into a $50,000 SUV, and people getting 35-40 (or more) prescriptions per year 100 miles from their house. I'd love for any liberal and their "it's our duty and moral obligation to support these people" mindset to defend this.......Please. Meanwhile, Tennessee is pissing it's money away supporting these addicts. And we wonder why we have budget troubles.