Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) announced a novel proposal on Wednesday to cut Medicare spending: send 20-30 million $11 bath mats to Medicare recipients to prevent costly falls.

“I’m the Johnny Appleseed of bath mats. Whenever I go to see somebody and they don’t have one of these in their shower, I buy one and send it to them. Now here’s the proposal, though: why doesn’t CMS [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] send one of these to every Medicare recipient in the country,” said Sen. King.

“I did the back-of-the-envelope calculation; it would pay for itself in about nine months,” he added.

King apparently thought that the proposal was clever enough to be worth clipping for social media.

Instead of cutting down on the massive amounts of healthcare fraud exposed by The Maine Wire in his home state and by other reporters and outlets across the country, King’s idea would see CMS purchasing 20-30 million $11 bath mats in the hope that they stop enough falls that ultimately cost the taxpayer welfare programs more.

“Allow CMS to spend money on prevention, things like grab bars and bath mats. Right now, Medicare will pay for a broken hip, but they won’t pay for a grab bar in your shower; that’s just insane,” said King.

While in theory spending less on prevention to stop more costly medical expenses might make some sense, in pratice, allowing taxpayer funds to be spent on new types of items will likely open the program up for even more forms of fraud.

Bath mat companies could crop up nationwide to bill Medicare for products never produced or sold.

King’s initial estimate of 20-30 million $11 bath mats would cost $220-330 million.