One of the revelations from my most recent not-quite-a-podcast podcast interview with Phil Kerpen was the Medicaid fraud situation. There’s a lot of fraud, and the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), now known as the One Big Beautiful Law (or the One Big Beautiful Act or OBBA), takes a chainsaw to numerous Medicare scams.
First, some basics. Poverty is at around 11% but between 20% to 25% of the population may be accessing Medicaid benefits. How? Biden stopped the requirements to get benefits, so millions of people who are currently working are still spending your money (on Medicaid) instead of their own on benefits they can afford. Dems are claiming that millions of needy folks will get cut off, but that’s not what the OBBA does. It restores eligibility requirements; if you work or can work, there is no free ride on someone else’s dime.
Another issue is the institutional fraud committed by state governments and hospitals that were ripping off Taxpayers. I covered that on my Substack over the weekend (subscription required). But to tease it a bit for context, States and Hospitals were rigging the system, and the OBBA kneecaps the scheme. It caps “Medicaid payments to hospitals at Medicare rates.”
Let’s call it public dole equity. Everyone’s rates are equal. As if the cost should be the same for a visit, treatment, or procedure, regardless of the taxpayer-backed federal “insurance” plan you tap into. Why would anyone object to that unless they benefited financially from the hijacked and over-inflated rates for Medicaid? [Colquhoun: Medicare Fraud Is Real and I Have The “Receipts”]
Hatin’ on Seniors
Democrats in Congress voted against a direct credit to seniors to offset any taxes on Social Security benefits. There are rules and limitations, and OBBA does not eliminate taxes on Social Security, but it does provide tax relief that, for those eligible, ends with the same outcome. Democrats voted no.
The Lefties in Congress also voted to defend the Medicaid scam that was undermining health care access for seniors on Medicare. Talk about irony. They are shouting about people not being able to get care because of the OBBA, when Medicaid Fraud was already limiting access to seniors.
The inflated Medicaid rates scam put Medicaid recipients, many of whom were capable of work or working and still on the program, ahead of Medicare recipients. Hospitals were making a lot of money thanks to Medicare loopholes created during the Biden era in collaboration with complicit states, none of which existed before the COVID pandemic. Given the options, the corporations that run the hospital Cartels will always prioritize revenue streams over patient care, something we learned the hard way during COVID.
With Medicare, you wait over there. If you are on Medicaid, come on in and help us bloat our bottom line at taxpayer expense.
The OBBA ends the scam. When Medicaid and Medicare rates reach parity thanks to the OBBA, there will no longer be any incentive to prioritize Medicaid patients over Medicare (both of which are still rife with abundant fraud).
Ask the angry mob of leftists parroting the approved party line why they want to keep screwing senior citizens badly. I doubt they have any clue that’s what they’re defending. And why are you defending the inflated rate scheme some hospitals and states used, which impacted access, unnecessarily added billions in costs, and encouraged waste?
These safety nets were created to help people in genuine need, not to launder money to public health corporations or unscrupulous state actors, thereby enabling the ineligible at significant expense.
