For the last several weeks we have focused on two themes in our posts. The first theme was good old political class insanity and how the politicians in this country always make things worse and we pay for their ineptness in so many ways. The second theme was a continual review of which major city or state government will get to bankruptcy court first given that our top candidates are already in financial death spirals.
We are going to step back from these themes for a while and embark on what is going to be a long list of instances of government and criminal and fraud corruption. Every level of government these days seems to have government programs that are infested with criminal actions that steal hard earned taxpayer dollars for themselves, depriving needy Americans of the resources they need to overcome the problems they face everyday.
There will be no special or organized order as we explore the multitude of capers and criminal actions against government programs. The only thing we can say now is that the almost daily uncovering of new fraud cases and investigations will be disgusting and long.
Before going any further, let’s give credit to Nick Shirley, a 23 year old independent journalist who uncovered billions of dollars worth of government fraud in Minnesota before moving on to California where he has been uncovering similar government corruption and criminal fraud in that state. It seems that his efforts were the catalyst that started an avalanche of criminal schemes stealing taxpayer dollars becoming public knowledge.
1)Although we have just started on the journey to discuss all of the government corruption going on, it seems California is going to get a large share of the discussion, given the criminal activities that have infested government programs out in that state:
California’s state government pays out almost $30 billion every year via its In-Home Supportive Services Program.
In theory, this program is supposed to get elderly and disabled folks the medical and life care they need right inside their home, a noble idea.
Unfortunately, it appears that anywhere between $6 billion and $12 billion a year never makes it to those people in need and is skimmed off by criminal fraud beforehand.
This is the estimated waste that was determined by analysis by the Manhattan Institute.
One aspect of the program is that it pays family members to help with cooking, personal care, laundry, and other everyday tasks that an elderly or disabled family member might need.
But weak oversight has allowed people to say they are caring for elderly or disabled relatives when that is not actually the case, pocketing taxpayer money in the process of doing phantom home care work.
In addition, apparently family members, in order to qualify and get paid for home care, have to join a home-care union and pay dues that come out to about $149 million a year.
The union, in turn, contributes to political campaigns of politicians which keep the fraud infested program running in order to get political campaign donations, a classic money laundering operation.
Thus, we have a case where not only are the criminals that defraud guilty but the politicians in power who love getting campaign donations are also complicit in defrauding the American taxpayer.
2)Consider some testimony from state government experts on the corruption they see on their jobs:
Kentucky state auditor, Allison Ball, and Dr. OJ Oleka, the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), recently testified at a Congressional committee hearing.
The hearing was “Fraud Prevention: Understanding Fraud in Federally Funded Programs Run By The States.”
Ball and Oleka reviewed the government fraud they see in the state of Kentucky.
Oleka: “When you have a culture that defers to fraud and allows it to stand, then you spend more money. When you spend more money that then mandates, based on your political philosophy, an increase in taxes. So, if you increase taxes on hardworking families, now they’re faced with the choice of putting gas in their car [or] paying [for] diapers for their children. There’s a real cost that families have to go through all because fraud wasn’t detected. And it [fraud] also sows distrust, because you have people who are trying to survive on WIC [Women, Infants, and Children] or SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] or government benefits, and they look to their left and they see one of their neighbors who’s a fraudster riding around in a Benz buying as much food as they can.”
He went on: “I would hope that nobody’s trying to make fraud a partisan issue. I think it’s really important that you’ve got the American people who feel not only compelled but interested in making sure their money is being spent efficiently. I’m an American citizen and I pay taxes. I want to make sure my government’s spending it efficiently. So, however you approach that as a government leader, I think really it probably demonstrates the kind of leader that you are.”
Ball talked about the state government fraud she found in Kentucky: “It’s because people were listed as living in Kentucky and then listed as living in other states. You have both states, Kentucky and somewhere else, paying for their medical bills. So, we did this real deep dive into why this happened, and one of the things we found, it was a cultural issue.”
Despite finding through an audit that the state government of Kentucky wasted over $800 million on Medicaid fraud, the governor’s office “actually told them, ‘Hey, this is low priority, you know, just get to it if you can. But it’s just not something that we’re really concerned about.'”
She went on to explain why this non-caring about government fraud is important: “So, if you have that kind of attitude, then obviously it opens the door for all kinds of problems, which is what we saw. I have been disappointed and frustrated because Governor Beshear, he sees everything as politics. And I say to him, ‘No, some of these real problems must need to be resolved.'”
She went on to testify that the governor, Andy Beshar, explained it away nonchalantly by stating: “Well, other states have the same problem.”
She also said that when she and others identified fraud problems outside of just Medicaid fraud, the governor’s office was not interested in fixing the wasting of taxpayer money that was supposed to be used for foster children: “An issue that we just did a report on was foster children in Kentucky have been housed in office buildings and other places, and that’s another one where we really wanted to work for the governor, we really want to work with the cabinet, and they just were not that interested.”
To Ball’s credit when questioned by a Congressman, James Comer, if the governor’s office was helpful in any form in curbing fraud in any way, she bravely stated “NO.”
There you have it: people working the fraud issue everyday and politicians at least in Kentucky saying “don’t bother us” with the wasting of taxpayer money in multiple government programs. Disgusting attitude and disrespect to American taxpayers.
3)Robert Kennedy, Jr., the current Health and Human Services Secretary, recently testified in front of Congress, under oath, and made some very distressing statements about how the Biden administration knew there was Medicaid and Medicare fraud going on and did nothing to stop it:
Specifically, his testimony was about the hundreds of bogus hospice organizations that were operating in the Los Angeles area, a topic we have already covered.
According to Kennedy, the system of fraud was actually named by the Biden administration, “pay and chase.”
He claims that under Biden, Medicare and Medicaid processed claims that their computer systems had already flagged as fraudulent but still cut and sent out the checks to the fraudulent hospice operators.
The strategy, if you can call it that, was to pay now and hope to recover the fraud dollars later, a totally stupid idea if true.
According to Mr. Kennedy: "We were paying claims that we knew were fraudulent before we paid them."
More globally, Mr Kennedy went on to explain: "Fraud has become rife throughout our system. We estimate the cost of it to the American taxpayer is about $100 billion a year."
Let me repeat his estimate for effect: American taxpayers are being defrauded by $100 billion (not millions, billions) a year even though the government knew of the fraud but still paid anyway.
A Texas member of the House, Beth Van Duyne, asked Kennedy about a building at 14545 Friar Street in Van Nuys, California.
Apparently, this single address was on record as being the location for over 100 Medicare licensed hospice operations and yet nobody in the Biden administration thought that was strange or a con job, 100 hospice organizations using the same address.
She had also asked Biden’s HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, that same question years before but as a member of the Biden administration, Becerra did nothing to shut down this single criminal organization which enabled it to continue to steal taxpayer wealth for years.
The Medicare and Medicaid scam worked as follows: criminal fake hospice operators recruited health people in mostly low income LA areas, offered them $600 in cash or a flat screen TV to sign up for end-of-life hospice care that most of them did not need.
Then Medicare and Medicaid paid the bogus and criminal hospice operators $6,000 for each of the bogus patients the fake hospices signed up.
Kennedy pointed out in his testimony that despite the fact that these folks were signed up for end-of-life hospice services, very, very few of them actually died.
Kennedy did not have kind words for Biden: "We are being victimized in our country because of the laxity of vigilance by the Biden Administration."
The sad part of this whole criminal fraud situation is that the General Accountability Office (GAO) knew that there were high levels of Medicare and Medicaid fraud going on since at least 1990 and put together over 100 recommendations to alleviate the massive fraud.
Unfortunately, most of them had still not been implemented over 30 years later.
Unbelievable that the Federal government could be so inept in managing taxpayer wealth. Refusing to implement dozens and dozens of recommendations to prevent Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Knowing that many claims were false and bogus and yet still paid them. Incredible incompetence.
That will do for our fraud review today: paying out on fake billings despite knowing they were fake, the Kentucky governor and his administration too busy to fix the leaking of taxpayer wealth to criminal enterprises, and obviously yet ignored hospice criminal operations in California.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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