The charges, outlined in five federal indictments and local fraud charges, raise new questions about how vulnerable taxpayer-funded health entitlements are to false claims and billing.
Federal prosecutors said Medicaid fraud has reached “epidemic levels” in the nation’s capital, as they announced charges Thursday against 25 people accused of making claims based on fake symptoms and personal home care that was never performed.
U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said agents fanned out across the D.C. region to make arrests and seize six luxury vehicles and 49 bank accounts, capping off a multiyear investigation that prosecutors deemed the “largest health care fraud takedown” in the city’s history.
“An astonishing amount of money was stolen from the American taxpayer,” said Valerie Parlave, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Authorities are still tabulating the alleged damage, but said one Maryland woman netted $75 million she was not entitled to and that other schemers took in millions more.
The charges, outlined in five federal indictments and local fraud charges, raise new questions about how vulnerable taxpayer-funded health entitlements are to false claims and billing.
About half the states are debating whether to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law, and conservative critics in those states say the federal-state entitlement program’s cost, inefficiency and susceptibility to fraud are reasons to be wary.
[…]
