Item — HN Reader

> FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.

Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to. Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

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> Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to

How would this even work? You can’t just start billing things to Medicaid if you’re ineligible for it. That would be like you deciding to bill United Healthcare for something despite not being a customer. How is this hypothetical fraud supposed to work? What am I missing?

> Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid. They’re trying to use records to find people to detain and deport which is an orthogonal dataset.

The only plausible explanation is that they’re using medical records as an additional source of data on people who live in houses that they’re raiding or looking at.

Which is insane. Imagine police rolling up to your front door on suspicion of something and loading up a system which has your medical records.

> Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to

Why are you presuming this? There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.

> Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?

If it is being honest about it's intention, yes. I think we have seen an absolute mountain of evidence that this administration does "audits" as massive data collection waves to suit any and every purpose they want, though.

If this was about fixing things being done incorrectly, DHHS should be doing the audit, not DHS. Perhaps the latter doesn't understand the difference between the two, though, not noticing they're missing an H in their abbreviation.

> There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.

Isn't the point of this data so that they can uncover exactly that? It'd be silly to say you're not allowed to look for evidence of anything unless you already have evidence of it. Also, the qualifier "in any widespread fashion" is weasel words. It makes me think you already know it is happening, and the only remaining question is to what scale.

How exactly would non-citizens, who do not have social security numbers or other valid identifying documents, receive medicaid? It's difficult enough for qualified people to get it. It would seem fairly difficult to pass the registration process without having a valid SSN. Furthermore, if someone was able to fraudulently sign up - say by using a stolen identity, then wouldn't the data in the system look valid and therefore not really show up on an audit?

And as the GP pointed out, it makes no sense to put the president's paramilitary agency¹ in charge of such an audit, rather than qualified auditors, perhaps from the HHS² OIG³.

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_He...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Inspector_General_(U...

"who do not have social security numbers" how would one prove or disprove this assumption?

Isn't identity theft a problem in the US? Especially because something which was not meant to be used as ID is used as one (the SSN)?

There are provisions in federal law which allow non citizens to receive federal Medicaid dollars in some circumstances.

Raceumedly

ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid FFS. And no, there’s absolutely no evidence they’re getting access to Medicaid.

They’re single mindedly looking for undocumented immigrants to deport.