Opinion: NY Medicaid fraud risk mirrors Minnesota's, critics say
An op-ed argues that New York's Medicaid program faces fraud and waste on a scale rivaling Minnesota's, criticizing policy choices and the nonprofit network that administers social services.
An opinion column argues that New York’s Medicaid program is vulnerable to fraud and waste on a scale rivaling Minnesota’s, and criticizes policy choices that, the author says, have allowed costs to spiral without curbing abuse. The piece, published by the New York Post, frames the issue as a broader critique of how liberal policymakers handle large welfare programs in both states.
The author notes that New York’s Medicaid outlays total about $116 billion a year, making it a tempting target for fraudsters and mismanagement alike. It highlights the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), a home-care arrangement that pays relatives or aides to assist Medicaid-eligible individuals. The column points to the program’s growth, saying it doubled to roughly $11 billion annually, and argues that the state’s response has been insufficient to rein in fraud and waste. The article contends that hiring a single private firm to oversee CDPAP has not yielded savings or fraud controls; instead, it allegedly empowered the 1199 union to organize nearly 300,000 personal assistants, a development the piece casts as likely to increase program costs.
The column argues that New York’s welfare state operates within a “nonprofit-industrial complex” that lacks sufficient scrutiny. It suggests that liberal policymakers are quick to rely on taxpayer dollars to address social problems but insufficiently curious about where the money goes or how well it helps recipients. The author asserts that New York’s system, like Minnesota’s, contains nonprofit profiteers that can obscure misallocation and fraud while preserving powerful political alliances within the state’s service-delivery ecosystem.
Turning to Minnesota, the op-ed argues that its welfare-programs have long drawn fraudsters, culminating in high-profile cases tied to pandemic-relief funding. It notes federal indictments in Minnesota, including cases charging Philadelphia-based operators for siphoning millions from Medicaid programs intended to help addicts and the disabled. The piece cites Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson as describing the scheme as a “systematic and wholesale attack on our state government programs.” It points to the so-called Feeding Our Future fraud, which prosecutors described as hijacking hundreds of millions in pandemic-relief funds, as the leading edge of a broader problem:
The author asserts that scammers created bogus “community-based” outfits that billed for housing-stabilization services and other supports they never provided, with checks cut by state agencies as fraud grew into multiple dozens of times the anticipated cost. It claims many of the schemes originated in the Somali immigrant community, a pivot the piece says intersected with Minnesota politics by complicating regulatory enforcement and prompting concern among some officials about alienating a key voting bloc.
The op-ed also critiques national policy surrounding international money transfers, invoking the 2014 Money Remittances Improvement Act championed in Congress by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. The author contends that the act pushed the U.S. Treasury to rely on looser state-level compliance regimes for certain informal money-transfer channels, which, in the view presented, allowed some criminal actors to move stolen funds abroad with limited oversight. The column characterizes Minnesota as having become a magnet for fraud and a sort of “fraud-tourism industry,” attracting individuals seeking to exploit state programs.
While the piece frames its account as a broader national issue—arguing that New York’s and Minnesota’s programs reveal how welfare systems can be vulnerable to abuse when oversight, procurement, and governance align with political incentives—it also warns readers not to treat these debates as mere partisan quarrels. The author suggests that both states’ charity-minded, policy-driven approaches can inadvertently shield scammers if not paired with rigorous auditing, independent program evaluation, and robust accountability mechanisms.
The piece closes by calling for a more skeptical inquiry into how welfare dollars are disbursed and monitored, arguing that taxpayers deserve clarity about program outcomes and the costs of delivering services to those who qualify. It also underscores that the allegations and characterizations come from an opinion column and should be weighed alongside official audits, court records, and independent analyses.