U.S. federal and state investigators launched a crackdown on Medicare fraud schemes in Southern California on Thursday, arresting 18 suspects, authorities said.

The suspects were allegedly engaged in 33-million-dollar various schemes involving the fraudulent ordering of power wheelchairs, hospital beds, feeding kits and specialized shoes for diabetics, according to the Justice Department.

Clinic owners and medical professionals were among those arrested, the department said.

The arrests were made by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, a team of federal and state investigators that began operating in the Los Angeles area earlier this year.

Since its inception last year, the strike force has indicted 175 people alleged to have billed Medicare for more than half a billion dollars.

"We're talking about losing billions of dollars annually through fraud and abuse," said Kirk Ogrosky, the Justice Department prosecutor in charge of the strike force. "And all of us taxpayers are footing the bill for this."

Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general, said crackdowns like the raids Thursday would help protect the integrity of Medicare "for the more than 40 million Americans who rely on the Medicare program for health coverage."

Investigators used "real time" access to Medicare claims data to identify potentially fraudulent billing from among more than 10,000 medical equipment suppliers in the Los Angeles area, authorities said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2008)