In our minds we could almost see it. Smokey Bear, the beloved mascot of the U.S. Forest Service, sat on a log and shook his furry head.

"How could they miss it?" Mr. Bear pondered in our minds as he examined the latest tale of problems in Ohio's beleaguered Medicaid system.

Something is burning in Columbus and it smells a lot like taxpayer money.

An independent study, only recently publicized, showed the state's Medicaid system overpaid pharmacies by approximately $69 million over a five-year period.

That's 69 million of your hard-earned tax dollars that were just accidentally given away.

Oops.

We're not upset that such problems occur. We're all human and as such are all capable of making mistakes. Sometimes that manifests itself in direct boo-boos and other times in indirect ones - the prescription problems have been blamed on a faulty computer software upgrade.

What angers us, however, is that government isn't quick in reacting to these problems in a timely, efficient manner.

The director of the state's Medicaid program said they were first alerted to a small problem in December of 2003 when bills were paid multiple times. Yet at least some of the problems of double paying continued until just a few months ago.

The overpayments for prescriptions could just be the tip of a burning iceberg of problems. The state should conduct a full-scale, independent audit of the entire Medicaid system.

With Medicaid continuing to feed itself, becoming a large money hog in the state's overall budget picture, we cannot afford to let it continue to wallow around as taxpayer money goes up in smoke.

Just like the oft-quoted Smokey might say: Where there's smoke, there's fire, too.

And, in typical "Smokey" manner, he might utter, "Only you, legislators, can prevent wasting taxpayer money."