As interest groups far and wide continued to find good reasons to protest deep state budget cuts, news out of a federal courtroom struck a bitter chord…
“Metro Detroit was at the center of a $50 million Medicare fraud case unveiled Wednesday that netted arrests as far away as Miami and Denver,” The Detroit News reported. “In all, 53 defendants, including four doctors, either appeared Wednesday in federal court in Detroit or are expected to do so in the coming days. Six other defendants are fugitives believed to have fled the country, officials said. The huge case is really a collection of eight cases involving physical therapy and injection or infusion therapy clinics. A common thread is that patients received kickbacks for use of their Medicare numbers; the federal health care program for the aged and disabled was billed for services that were never provided; and the hefty spoils were shared among a group of clinic owners, doctors, recruiters and other co-conspirators, according to grand jury indictments unsealed Wednesday.”
Medicaid health care for those in poverty accounts for more than a quarter of the state’s general fund budget. State funds match federal funds to total some $9 billion a year to cover the health care for some 1.5 million Michigan residents. The Medicaid portion of the general fund is more than three times larger than it was in 1980.
This week’s story of Medicaid fraud reminds us of another scandal last summer in which the Michigan Auditor General found more than $200 million in improper and fraudulent child care payments for Michigan families on social assistance.
Gov. Granholm has made it her top priority to take care of Michigan’s vulnerable populations during this deep recession. Budget hawks and reformers in Lansing are proposing significant, controversial and complex cuts to social programs, including tightened eligibility and tightened coverage options for Medicare.
The budget fights over social program cuts will be bitter. But so, too, is the reality that many other strategic priorities for Michigan’s future — like K-12 funding, higher education funding, and natural resources protection — suffer as the Medicaid budget continues to grow.
When every budget penny counts, there is simply zero room for any tolerance of Medicaid and social program fraud. Imagine the other productive uses for the $50 million in Medicaid fraud alleged by the feds this week. Imagine the real needs of the poor that are going unmet today. Here’s just one example… that wasted $50 million is enough to restore one-third of the proposed state Senate cuts to college scholarships, including scholarships for low income students.
Medicaid scammers rob more than the taxpayers. They rob the many low income residents working against long odds to rise out of poverty.
Ongoing budget negotiations include proposed cuts to the Auditor General. That’s penny-wise and pound-foolish. Doubling the Auditor General’s budget to $25 million is a better solution. More auditors could help assure that more of Michigan’s precious state budget resources are used properly and efficiently.
One Comment
The overall point about attacking scams is OK, but your article is sloppy. The announcement this week was MEDICARE fraud, not MEDICAID. ‘Care is federal money; ‘Caid is fed-state shared and affects the state budget as you indicate. But when the feds attack Medicare fraud it won’t have any affect on state budgets. Please be careful in how you write about this–there’s already a lot of misunderstanding on health care financing and budgets overall.