GAO’s Health Care Team
Posted on June 27, 2014
GAO’s workforce is organized largely by subject area, with most employees working in 1 of 14 mission teams. Today, we’ll be putting the spotlight on the Health Care team, which supports congressional oversight of federal agencies responsible for health care delivery and financing. These programs tangibly affect the lives of all Americans. Expenditures on federal health care programs represent about a quarter of all federal spending each year. Ensuring that these programs provide access to quality care, protect the public, and remain fiscally sustainable is one of the greatest challenges facing Congress and the President in the 21st century.
Reports
The Health Care team’s reports cover five main issue areas:
- Military and Veterans’ Health Care
- Public Health
- Private Insurance
- Medicare
- Medicaid

Excerpted from GAO-14-194
The immediate cause of these new and ongoing drug shortages can generally be traced to a manufacturer who halts or slows production to address quality problems, leading to a supply disruption that other manufacturers don’t have the capacity to offset. In addition, low profit margins for certain drugs have limited manufacturers’ infrastructure investments or led some to exit the market entirely. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for addressing prescription drug shortages. Although shortages have persisted, the agency has improved its responsiveness and prevented more potential shortages in the last 2 years. However, shortcomings in FDA’s management of drug shortage data could undermine its efforts. We recommended that the agency strengthen its internal controls over its drug shortage data and periodically assess the information to proactively identify drug shortage risk factors. Listen to a podcast and watch the Ask GAO Live chat we recorded with the director of this work:- Questions on the content of this post? Contact Cindy Bascetta at bascettac@gao.gov.
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