ObamaCare oversight: Budget squeeze forces HHS watchdog to trim investigative targets
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By Fred Schulte, Center for Public Integrity 
Facing major budget and staff cuts, federal officials are scaling back several high-profile health care fraud and abuse investigations, including an audit of the state insurance exchanges that are set to open later this year as a key provision of the Affordable Care Act.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, which investigates Medicare and Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse, is in the process of losing a total of 400 staffers — or about 20 percent of the workforce — from its peak strength of 1,800 last year. About 200 of those staffers will have departed by the end of this year, and the other 200 are slated to be gone by the end of 2015.
