Why New York politicians might be so very friendly to Medicaid fraud

“Don’t look, don’t think” looks to be the attitude politicians from state Sen. John Liu to Gov. Kathy Hochul to then-Health Secretary Xavier Becerra took to what seems blatant Medicaid fraud in Flushing.

Donations and other political support may help explain the New York pols’ obliviousness, though like Becerra these Democrats seem to think stopping fraud is a waste of taxpayer money.

The Post’s Chadwick Moore uncovered a trail of campaign contributions to Hochul and other pols from owners of some Flushing’s biggest Social Adult Day-Care businesses — centers that were empty of clients when our reporters visited (though none yet stands accused of wrongdoing).

In 2022, Hochul’s campaign took in $55,000 from adult day-care operators who billed Medicaid more than $40 million since 2018.

Her campaign allegedly solicited the donations, with the day-care operators urged to participate. 

Baoli Zhang, a major owner of SADCs, also gave $7,800 to Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) and $4,950 to Liu.

Like many government-regulated businesses, SADC want politicians’ goodwill; donations don’t necessarily buy a license to steal, but they do discourage questions.

And many Democrats frown on anti-fraud efforts, fearing that exposing theft will undermine public support for these programs: That’s presumably why Biden-era Health and Human Services chief Becerra (now running for California governor) slashed HHS’s anti-fraud shop from 80 investigators to just six, and why state Attorney General Tish James runs one of the laziest anti-Medicaid-fraud shops in the country.

In a Chinese-language news report on federal fraud convictions in 2022, Zhang praised New York’s “very generous” programs as offering “the best welfare” in America, while noting that “weak government regulation” and operators who use “cash rebates and other means” to sign people up will make things “difficult” for “owners of regulated operations.”

That is: He well knew that fraudsters could readily target the state’s $124 billion Medicaid program; his remarks almost seem a warning to avoid attention to keep the gravy train rolling.

Meng says she welcomes “good faith investigations” but resents supposed “MAGA campaigns targeting Asian American senior citizens.”

Liu says he’s all for “full investigations and prosecutions” where “fraud and impropriety are suspected,” though he doubts the Flushing centers are as empty as Post reporting suggests.

(They’re certainly occupied sometimes, such as when pols like Liu are expected to visit and campaign for seniors’ votes.)

Sorry: It’s not politics to find and prosecute health-care fraud, and we expect some can be found in Republican areas, too.

Cracking down on the tens of billions now stolen from government social-service programs is vital to ensuring the cash helps the truly needy, not the scammers.

Democrats, who are always looking to justify more spending, should be able to see that.