COLUMBUS, Ohio — Just before the Department of Government Efficiency closed its doors, it made a quiet move that may end up as its most lasting impact on the federal deficit.
DOGEpublished a massive trove of datain February that, for the first time, lets the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for. For decades, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy. One of the largest government programs was a black box.
I’ve spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter.
This is the first part of “Medicaid Millionaires,” a Daily Wire series exposing billions of dollars in dubious “personal services” payments where people are paid to spend time with their own family.
I set my sights on Ohio, which like Minnesota, has been grantedwaiversto expand Medicaid well beyond its original purpose. Under the guise of health care, Ohio pays people to go to Medicaid beneficiaries’ homes to perform “homemaking” and “chores” like cooking and cleaning. The people performing these “personal services” tasks don’t even have to be health care workers — and in many cases, are actually relatives of the Medicaid recipient.
According to aDaily Wiredata analysis, Ohio spent a billion dollars on home health care in 2024, the last year for which data is available.
Since the services are performed inside private residences, there is no way to know whether the workers went at all, or what they’re actually doing in exchange for taxpayer funds. An infinite number of small black boxes inside a black box. Multiple signs said the service provided, and billed to the government, was sometimes just “companionship & conversation.”
As people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families, northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid. And Columbus, a city with the second largest Somali population in the country, has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.
“Well if the government is going to pay you to do it,” one home health operator told me. “People see it as lucrative, so they just jump on it.”
The new welfare queens aren’t the recipients whose low incomes qualify them for poverty programs. They’re the companies getting rich off them.
Source: Drudge Report
