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Ohio State Auditor Keith Faber said Tuesday that officials are preparing to move on potential Medicaid fraud uncovered by a Daily Wire investigation.<\/p>\n
Faber, a Republican running for state attorney general, said in an interview with radio host Bruce Hooley that he was ready to make the transition from uncovering fraud to prosecuting those responsible for it \u2014 and that The Daily Wire\u2019s recent investigation had given him a great place to look deeper.<\/p>\n
Faber and Hooley discussed the investigation by The Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak and said they would certainly not be surprised to find a fair amount of fraud in a massive government program like Medicaid. Because the state is responsible for determining who is eligible for benefits at the federal level, all that is necessary for fraud and abuse is for someone not to look too closely at what\u2019s happening at the bottom.<\/p>\n
Still, Faber said that an investigation was clearly warranted \u2014 and that Vice President JD Vance\u2019s promise to get his federal task force involved would open up much broader access to data.<\/p>\n
The next step, Faber said, is a full audit to get comparative data from around the state and line up the different counties side by side \u2014 and if there were anomalies between counties that should show similar use of those programs, they would know where to dig deeper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a program, for example, that I testified six weeks ago in front of the Medicaid Joint Committee, that literally is a $1.6 billion program, 38% of of that money is spent in Franklin County \u2014 and by demographics, Cuyahoga County is 16%, which should be about the same as Franklin County, you\u2019re saying something\u2019s unusual, that\u2019s an anomaly in the data,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd then if you find that 40% of that 38% \u2014 or more than $200 million \u2014 is spent in two zip codes, you\u2019ve got something going on in those two zip codes that is not happening throughout the rest of the state with a huge over-utilization of these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosiak\u2019s report, published on Monday, detailed dozens of \u201chome health\u201d companies operating out of a single, small building in Columbus. While there are legitimate uses for home health \u2014 to lower costs by helping patients avoid nursing homes \u2014 the services offered by such companies open the door for family members to receive a federal paycheck for providing simple home services or even just companionship to an older relative. Fraud, as Rosiak noted, is nearly impossible to prove because the services \u2014 if provided at all \u2014 are provided in private residences.<\/p>\n
Vance responded to the report immediately, saying in an X post<\/a> that he planned to have his Fraud Task Force review the findings and begin prosecuting anyone found to have defrauded the government.<\/p>\n \u201cThese shocking allegations, if true, show why the Fraud Task Force\u2019s work is so important. I\u2019m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nLISTEN @7:15:<\/h3>\n