Are Blue States Grifting More Than Red States? As President Trump and his team are trying to save Medicaid for those who really need it (the ill & the infirm who have few resources), kick off the freeloaders, including illegal aliens, and eliminate as much grift as is possible within such a massive bureaucracy, I was reminded of clients I had in the early years of Obamacare. [I practiced law in Oregon from October 1986 to January 2020.]
OBAMA, THE SALESMAN, SOLD AMERICANS A LEMON
A couple had been taking care of the wife’s mother in their home for many, many years. The mother was disabled and received Medicaid. Medicaid had paid this couple $800 per month for several years, which was eventually raised to $1,000 per month. One day a Medicaid payment arrived for more than $6,000. They assumed there had been an error because the amount was extremely high and they were not sent any explanation. So, before they cashed the check, the husband phoned their Medicaid caseworker.
The caseworker told them that, under the (laughably-named) Affordable Care Act, this was the new amount they would be receiving EACH month. They did not accept this explanation so they asked to speak to her supervisor. He told them that Medicaid was “flush with cash due to the ACA and Oregon HAD TO spend it.” [Oregon’s greedy bureaucrats didn’t want to send unspent money back to Washington DC, the hapless taxpayers be damned.] He told this couple, if they did not accept the higher payments, the wife’s mother would be removed from their home and put in a facility.^ They received the $6,000 per month for another year or so, until her mother passed away.
LET’S PONDER THIS MIND-BOGGLING WASTE
No doubt, tens of thousands of other Medicaid caretakers throughout Oregon, and probably millions throughout the nation, were receiving similar windfalls due to Obamacare. This couple had been happy to have her mother in their home and to personally care for her for $1,000 per month. Why would Oregon’s Medicaid bureaucrats throw an extra $5,000 per month at them? We can assume that all places taking care of Medicaid patients, whether in personal homes or in nursing homes, also got this massive windfall.
The Medicaid corruption is so massive that an audit conducted last year revealed that Oregon spent $445 million on Medicaid benefits for recipients enrolled in the Medicaid program in other states from 2019 to 2022. Indeed, Oregon spent more on Medicaid in 2023 than it did on education, transportation and public safety combined,* the audit said. [Diane asks: How much did this sanctuary state waste on Biden’s “newcomers?”]
Oregon was caught using Medicaid for cooking classes, air conditioners and mini fridges, anything they could think of to spend, spend, spend the money so they would receive the same amount, or more, the following year. The Biden Regime also gave states waivers to spend federal Medicaid dollars on non-medical purposes, including food, homeless housing, and personal transportation for illegals and Americans. Health and Human Services is only supposed to grant such waivers if they don’t increase the federal deficit, but the Biden HHS ignored this rule.
Nearly half of the states received permission from the Biden Regime to spend Medicaid dollars on housing, and a dozen states have for food, to people already getting federal low-income housing vouchers and food stamps. Biden’s HHS even blessed California’s plan to spend federal Medicaid dollars on “activity stipends” for art and music lessons for children and club sports. In July 2024, the State of Washington expanded their Medicaid program to include illegal aliens. Medicaid is JUST ONE of the government programs which is rife with fraud and grift. The Trump 47 team is trying to ferret it out, save the program and save taxpayers’ dollars.
Obamacare Was Designed To Rob Baby Boomers of Medicare Benefits
Let’s be clear. By passing and implementing the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare, in March 2010, the Democrats* had a short-term goal and a long-term goal. The short-term goal was to deny Medicare benefits to Baby Boomers, the FIRST generation to pay Medicare taxes our ENTIRE WORKING LIVES. And just in time, as the oldest Baby Boomers started claim…
^The day after Christmas 2012 my husband and I visited three local nursing homes from a list of 10-12 given to us. The assisted living facility where his 97-year-old father was living was about to evict him because he needed more care than they were licenced to provide. One of these nursing homes was HORRIBLE. Being completely naive, we did not realize until later, this one was a Medicaid nursing home.
*The lack of both financial and moral support for police became obvious when the Democrat thugs were allowed to riot in the Portland Metro Area for five months in 2020 and the police were ordered to stand down, to just watch as they attack law-abiding citizens and their property. That was the last straw which chased us out of our dream house.
The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited.
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A great article. When I was doing lobbying work in New Hampshire in the 1990s, we were already seeing scams perpetrated on behalf of Medicare. We called it “Mediscam,” and one Democrat state senator, the late Susan McClain (her daughter Ann Kuster is currently a leftist rep for NH), actually used our term positively on the State Senate floor in a debate, saying “I love this phrase.” The reason why she liked the idea of the “scam” was because it would allow leftists in New Hampshire to bilk the federal government of Medicare dollars for other purposes.
The more money Democrats can steal from earners, the more power they have. THAT is way they can’t stand the idea of DOGE finding and stopping waste, fraud, abuse and grift. In Blue States and Blue Cities, Democrats have sent their Useful Idiots out, onto the streets, to scream, vandalize and assault.