This editorial has been corrected to state that massive misspending was found in Medicaid, not Medicare.

The healthcare system is difficult to understand, and so is the insurance market.

But state and federal agencies dealing with these matters have billions of dollars at their disposal and, hopefully, these funds will be put in the places that need it the most.

Mississippi is one of the poorest states so it receives one of the highest percentages of federal Medicaid funding.

But this year, the state recovered $8.6 million in misspent Medicaid funds.

Let that number sink in for a moment. $8.6 million dollars. That’s enough to build 70 percent of the county’s proposed annex project.

That’s about $2 million more than the county’s entire general fund budget for 2017.

With that much money being misspent, we have to wonder, where is it going? How does the state recover it? And what effect does that have on health care providers when that money is taken back?

While it is commendable the state was able to recover those funds, the misuse of funding shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.

Health care administrators hold a lot of power, and so do federal and state agencies. That’s why it’s so important for checks and balances.

With this amount of funding being misspent, it’s time for the private sector healthcare systems to get a grip on spending taxpayers’ money.

While providing adequate healthcare to all is essential, it has to be done in the right ways to prevent further harm.