It’s no secret to anyone that the US health care system is having problems for quite some time. In fact, the problems inside the medical system constituted a hot issue during the presidential campaign when both Barack Obama and John McCain promised to improve things.

The presidential campaign is over and it seems that Obama has to repair more things than expected inside the medical system. According to the most recent report on the matter released Friday, fraud and abuse by some health care providers contributed to a 44 percent rise in Medicare spending on home health care services over five years.

The report was made by the Government Accountability Office at the request of Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. The report reviewed home care payments from 2002 to 2006 and found out that the number of Medicare beneficiaries using in-home services increased by 17 percent to 2.8 million during that period and spending on home health care services reached $13 billion in 2006.

The report clearly shows that some home care providers exaggerated beneficiaries’ medical conditions, while others billed the government for unnecessary services or care they did not provide.

Given the results of the report, the GAO recommends the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services do criminal background checks on home health providers and draft new rules to remove problem providers from the Medicare program.

“I regret to say that it seems to me that [Medicare] is out of touch with the home health benefit and has yet to recognize the vulnerabilities inherent in the system. In order to bring much needed integrity into this program, [Medicare] needs to stop dropping the ball,” Grassley wrote Medicare's acting administrator.