One of the more impressive accomplishments of President Donald Trump’s second term has been exposing government waste, particularly large-scale welfare fraud.
With the federal government’s deficit spending at $2 trillion, concern over fraud should be high on every politician’s list, regardless of party. Yet as more examples surface — as we have seen in Minnesota, where a decade of unchecked fraud totals over $9 billion, or in Maine, where some $45 million in fraud was tied to the state’s Medicaid program — Democrats have ignored the issue.
Actually, it’s worse; they play a deceitful game, suggesting it isn’t a major problem or a common form of serious corruption that deserves attention. They’re behaving like “Hogan’s Heroes” Sergeant Hans Schultz: “I see nothing! I know nothing!”
This deceit is aided by several states’ apparent failure to investigate whether any welfare fraud has occurred.
In a recent statement, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said that eight states have reported zero instances of Medicaid-related fraud. “How is that possible across states serving millions of Medicaid beneficiaries?” Oz asked, adding, “Either the reporting is broken, or the oversight is. We’re going to find out which.”
Several states have reported fraud, the latest being Florida, which found hundreds of millions in fraudulent spending tied to Medicaid billing.
The fraud was so significant that Florida reduced its projected annual Medicaid spending by a whopping $1 billion. As Republican Governor Ron DeSantis explained, “This year, we announced the most significant Medicaid integrity initiative in the history of our state, and today, I was proud to announce some of the results from these efforts.”
This is the kind of response Americans should demand from every political leader. At the very least, when the American taxpayer is shelling out billions of dollars for various welfare programs, those charged with administering those funds should do their due diligence to ensure the funds go only to those who genuinely need them. Failing to do so only undermines support for these welfare programs.
This is why it is so troubling that several Democrat-run states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, have reported no instances of Medicaid fraud.
This lack of reporting creates the illusion that all these taxpayer-funded welfare programs are on the up and up. In turn, Democrat politicians can claim that concerns over widespread fraud are overblown, even as they bang the drum for more government spending on welfare.
Historically, one of the most effective ways to uncover government corruption is to follow the money. Isn’t it interesting that Democrats, in particular, seem very reticent to investigate welfare programs? It naturally raises the question: are they hiding something?
Another factor to observe is that many involved in the latest instances of massive welfare fraud schemes have not been American citizens. Foreigners, whether legally or illegally in the country, have been found to have taken advantage of a welfare system in some states that seems entirely uninterested in ensuring the money is distributed legitimately.
This also raises the specter of the whole problematic notion of handing out welfare to noncitizens. Shouldn’t simply being allowed to live in America, with the opportunity to live free, work, and earn a good living, be reward enough for those seeking to immigrate? The notion that noncitizens should have a right to receive any welfare should be reason enough not to allow such a person into the country.
Given this context, Oz pointedly contends that the lack of reports of any Medicaid fraud “could be a sign of something far more serious, that oversight isn’t happening.”
