Washington, D.C. ? Facing continued public skepticism about the new health care law, President Barack Obama traveled to Maryland Tuesday to tout the distribution of $250 rebate checks for senior citizens who hit the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare’s drug coverage, one of the law’s first benefits.

At the same time, the president announced a new initiative to cut in half the amount of waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program by the end of 2012, an ambitious goal that would require the federal government to recover as much as $18 billion.

“I want to send a notice to all who would swindle and steal from seniors and the Medicare system,” the president said during a town hall meeting in suburban Washington. “We are going to find you, we will prosecute you, and we will ultimately prevent those crimes from happening ever again.”