Former FBI Agent Blasts Tim Walz – Says Medicaid Fraud Fix “Not Going To Work”
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After major fraud has been exposed, Minnesota officials are trying to put in a fix to prevent fraud.
They are adding an extra layer of verification for high-risk Medicaid programs.
The federal government estimates that Minnesota taxpayers have lost $9 billion in fraud since 2018.
Former FBI Agent Jonathan Gilliam downplayed that these fixes will actually work.
He told Fox News, “Putting an extra layer in is not going to help…And one layer is not gonna stop any, it may stop one part of the fraud, it’s not really gonna make any difference overall.”
Minnesota officials are adding an extra layer of verification to payments from high-risk Medicaid programs, a move one former law enforcement official says won’t make “any” difference as federal authorities allege taxpayers in the state have lost more than $9 billion to fraud since 2018.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) announced an additional layer of verification will be added to payments from Medicaid programs that have a high risk of potential fraud. As part of the audit process, DHS said healthcare company Optum will review payments before they are sent to individual providers.
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Former FBI Special Agent Jonathan Gilliam told Fox News Digital the new layer of verification likely won’t make a difference.
“Putting an extra layer in is not going to help,” Gilliam said. “And one layer is not gonna stop any, it may stop one part of the fraud, it’s not really gonna make any difference overall.”
Gilliam said Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz committed “at the minimum malpractice” by the sheer amount of fraud that was committed in his state.
Republicans called out Tim Walz over the fraud.
Walz said he would take accountability for the fraud.
Gov. Tim Walz said he would take accountability for fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid programs and would work to fix it, but took issue with estimates gauging the total lost to improper payments at around $9 billion.
The comments came on Friday, a day after federal prosecutors announced a slate of additional charges tied to alleged widespread fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid programs and suggested that at least half of the $18 billion spent in Minnesota since 2018 in 14 Medicaid programs viewed as high risk for abuse had been obtained by fraudulent means.
“It’s speculating,” Walz said following a news conference on an unrelated issue, noting that payments had been cut off for programs and providers suspected of misusing Medicaid funds. “To extrapolate what that number is for sensationalism or to make statements about it, it doesn’t really help us. It doesn’t get us to where we need. I just need their help to prosecute this.”
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Republicans have blasted the governor for not acting sooner to detect and weed out fraud in the programs. Gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel told WCCO Radio that Walz was “willfully blind” to the issue over the course of his seven years in office.
