Easy Medicaid Money Blows Up Autism Rate?

Letter to Ephesians: Is there anyone left who’s not “autistic”? Drum roll. One reason autism is “exploding” is welfare fraud. Does Minnesota’s example show that lucrative behavioral therapy is a magnet for scam artists?

That’s the gist of WSJ’s Allysia Finley op ed calling attention to the fact that diagnosis rates of autism among children has more than tripled the past 15 years: “One reason,” she notes, is “Minnesota’s welfare scandal [which] lays bare with shocking detail, is Medicaid fraud & abuse.” As the columnist explains, Medicaid has been paying so-called healthcare providers generous amounts to diagnose & treat children with autism. The problem is that con artists have discovered the agencies running the program seldom if ever verify or check the validity of the beneficiaries or services provided, let alone the “providers” themselves. The result: “Children covered by Medicaid or the government run Children’s Health Insurance Program are 2.5 times as likely as those with private coverage to be diagnosed with autism.” In Minnesota alone, “the number of autism providers soared 700% & payments to them increased 3,000% between 2018 & 2023.”

The horror stories described by Ms. Finley are shocking and have been exhaustively reported elsewhere in recent weeks. Politicians like Gov. Tim Walz undeniably knew it was going on but did nothing to stop the grifting. In fact, there is no oversight as Medicaid scammers of all sorts and varieties in a disturbing number of states (not just Minnesota) have gone wild. Concluded Finley: “For politicians trying to reform … America’s broken entitlement programs can seem like picking up a grenade. Easier to keep the money flowing, even if the spending eventually blows up on taxpayers.”

Davd Soul