As most everyone knows by now, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Act) on March 25, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the Reconciliation) on March 30, 2010.

Although private health insurance reforms dominated the health care reform debate, the Act and the Reconciliation, taken together, also require vast changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including new and strengthened mechanisms for combating fraud, waste, and abuse in the state and federal health care programs.