Saying that his goal is to reduce improper payments by $50 billion between now and 2012, President Barack Obama signed into law today the Improper Payment Elimination and Recovery Act, a bill he noted that was unanimously passed by both houses of Congress.

In signing the bill, the President said overpayments from scam artists amounted to $110 billion representing more than the combined budgets of the Department of Education and the Small Business Administration. The President also announced the existence of a "no pay" list of entities that are ineligible to receive payments.

The law amends the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 to expand requirements for identifying programs and activities susceptible to improper payments by requiring the head of each federal agency, during the year after the enactment of this Act and at least on once every three fiscal years thereafter, to review and identify agency programs and activities that may be susceptible to significant improper payments.

The law defines "significant" to mean improper payments in the preceding fiscal year that may have exceeded $100 million or $10 million of all program and activity payments and 2.5 percent of program outlays and for fiscal years prior to FY2013, improper payments that may have exceeded $100 million or $10 million of all program and activity payments and 1.5 percent of program outlays.

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ED. NOTE: Listen to Monitor Monday, July 26, 2010, 10 AM ET for a summary of this legislation by RACmonitor contributing editor Carla Engle. Engle will also be reporting on the implications of the legislation's expansion into other healthcare entities in the August 5^th edition of RACMonitorEnews. Register now for both reports at racmonitor.com.