There’s no place like home — for health care fraud |
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There’s no place like home — for health care fraud
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Some ideas are better on paper than in reality. That’s the case with state-subsidized home health care performed by relatives.
In principle, it saves money to pay relatives for providing basic care that would be more expensive for the government in a hospital or nursing home. In practice, the policy has become riddled with fraud, almost everywhere it has been tried. The only solution may be to end it.
Ever since the pandemic, when California suffered upward of $30 billion of fraud in the unemployment benefits program, it was obvious the real story of fraud in the state was much bigger.
(California borrowed that money from the feds, and is the only state that hasn’t paid back the borrowed funds. On top of that, Gov. Gavin Newsom stuck California employers with the long-term bill.)
When it comes to Medicaid, which is a federally-subsidized program providing health care to low-income families, states typically pay only 31% to 35% of the costs, with the feds picking up the rest of the tab.
Obamacare requires states to revalidate all of their Medicaid providers at least once every five years. This is a ridiculously long period, and should be decreased to every two years, with a thorough review.
States are required to check their providers against a federal blacklist of providers that have committed crimes, gross negligence, fraud, or patient abuse.
States also........