Pennsylvania catches fraud — Minnesota makes excuses

I have spent a career in the financial services industry and a court-designated expert witness untangling other people's money after something went wrong. The lesson never changes: a fraud scheme survives exactly as long as the people responsible for watching it decide to look the other way. That is why the case coming out of Philadelphia this month is worth every taxpayer's attention, red state or blue. On Aug. 4, the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division charged 19 people in a scheme that treated Pennsylvania's Medicaid home-care program as a personal ATM. One purported aide claimed to be providing round-the-clock care to a homebound client while she was, in fact, incarcerated. A father-and-son team billed Medicaid for care the son supposedly delivered while driving for a rideshare app, including one stretch when he was actually being cited for marijuana possession during a traffic stop, and another when he was in a courtroom watching a relative get sentenced for a different fraud case. One defendant billed for services while vacationing in Saudi Arabia. Another was recorded bragging that home care is "the best kept secret," having pocketed roughly half a million dollars over five years without anyone checking his work. You cannot make this up. Fortunately, the Justice Department did not have to. It is all right there in the charging documents. What makes Pennsylvania's case different from the fraud epidemics rotting other state Medicaid programs is not t…