As feds join the parade calling out fraud in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s aid “reform,” perhaps the underlying corruption of New York’s Medicaid programs will begin to emerge.
The Justice Department’s Justice Department last week filed a lawsuit over a 2024 plan to consolidate payments to nearly 240,000 home care aides covered by the $11 billion Consumer Assistance Program.
That makes twelve cases so far: It’s a parade!
Under CDPAP, Medicaid covers services to help elderly or disabled people in the home, paying about $20 an hour.
New York lawmakers loosened rules in 2015 to allow friends or relatives to be paid to do the work — with costs rising by billions as enrollment doubled.
The number of “middlemen” (businesses and non-profits) handling CDPAP payments rose from seven to 700 – as fraud increased, too.
Simple enough: The middleman pays for the hours not worked, and splits the wind.
At this point, the monster health workers union 1199 SEIU (eager to sign up new members) got Hochul to push for a change that would have added costs.
No, not to tighten the rules that started the cost explosion, but to hire one company to handle it everything lead job.
That “fix” looks like a a giant fraud.
Health Commissioner James McDonald and Health Director Amir Bassiri are fending off a bid to award a contract to Public Partnership LLC – and the move is gaining momentum.
Several investigations have already proven that PPL was negotiating with senior government officials long before the official bid was opened; The company’s name even came from the early wisdom of the “fix” law.
Evidence on the other hand shows that 1199 was in the wash, too.
Sadly, PPL had already failed catastrophically and publicly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey before Team Hochul hired it – and did it again in New York, failing miserably to move workers to the central system.
But the change was a big winner for 1199, allowing its New York membership to grow by nearly 50% as it began raising CDPAP wages.
Surprise: Hochul’s transformation has yet to produce the $500 million a year in savings it promises, and it may improve 1199 works its persuasive magic.
All of this is basically par for the course for Medicaid in New York, whose political machinery depends on the vested interests that feed the program.
This is why overall spending is increasing every year; it will burn $124 billion this year – more per capita than any other region and nearly triple the $46 billion spent in 2013.
Even 3 million of the state’s 6.4 million enrollees may not be eligible for benefits.
Meanwhile, anti-fraud enforcement has sunk under Attorney General Letitia James, with investigations down 45% since she took office and fraud detections down 80%.
Hochul, James and the entire New York Democratic establishment erupt in anger whenever Washington looks to control its bleeding Medicaid exits.
They always say they are protecting the poor, but what they are watching is the corruption that eats away at their jobs in politics.
