Scandal Tracker 2024: the fraud keeps piling up

We’ve added two items to our official Scandal Tracker 2024 list. Ryan Faircloth of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports this morning on a federal analysis of COVID-era unemployment benefit overpayments under the headline:

Feds estimate Minnesota overpaid about $430 million in unemployment benefits during pandemic

At the same time, Minnesota’s overpayment and fraud rates for unemployment insurance were estimated to be among the lowest in the country

Personally, I take little comfort in the “low” rates of errors and fraud. Fraud is fraud. The Star Tribune reports more specifically:

Minnesota was among just a handful of states that had overpayment rates below 10%, according to the Department of Labor. The state’s estimated fraud rate was also among the lowest at about 2%

Even at a tiny rate of 2 percent, on total overpayments estimated at more than $434 million, the amount of fraud would total nearly $8.7 million. We’ve included that latter amount in the Scandal Tracker.

Additionally, an alert reader noticed that I had missed a significant Medicaid fraud dating back to 2019. In September 2019. the state attorney general reported on a busy week at the office:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today announced 50 felony charges against 11 individuals in nine different cases that involve various billing-fraud schemes alleged to have cost Minnesota’s Medical Assistance (Medicaid) program more than $800,000.

Today’s charges bring to 21 the number of people charged with a total $3 million in Medicaid fraud this week.

We’ve included the $3 million figure in the Tracker. The 2019 cases involved the state’s Medical Assistance and Federal Medicaid programs. Services included personal care assistance (PCA), dentistry, and assisted living.

Here’s the updated list:

Developing…