ID cards can stop all kinds of fraud

Kudos to Connie Pohlman for her perspective regarding “Fraud exists where voter id doesn’t.”

I can recall recently (within the last year or so) where a woman had been voting for something like 29 years as a non-citizen which, I believe not only is a record, but also illegal and may, indeed, be a felony. I can also recall a recent case where another woman (also in the country illegally) was able to get over $500,000 worth of cancer treatments utilizing another woman’s stolen Medicare card. This took place near Rockford, I believe.

The Department of Homeland Security readily admitted it doesn’t have any idea how many illegal, undocumented aliens are in the U.S. It has pegged the number at around 25 million, but I don’t recall if this included children since, I believe, children born in this country are considered legal.

Other issues related to fraudulent documentation include the issues related to Hurricane Katrina, Medicare and Medicaid. There’s so much waste fraud and abuse in these systems that the GAO has no idea how much the annual cost is. Current estimates range from a minimum of $2 billion to $20 billion a year.

All this is going on simply because there is no idiot proof system or mandatory requirement for positive ID verification. In the end this oversight will kill us.

It is a small thing, a photo ID that can be provided, but be assured that they too will be counterfeited or copied, or stolen. It seems to me that only a “finger printed” card matched to a photo ID and the person is valid. This can be done relatively simply.

Stephen McMahon

Grayslake