A friend of mine referred me to the following article about what's happening in Arizona:
PHOENIX – Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced a State Grand Jury indicted Jennifer Garrett on 10 felony counts after allegedly falsifying her income to qualify for more than $70,000 in state benefits. During the time Garrett aka Jennifer Haynie received state medical benefits, investigators allege she and her then-husband owned and operated a successful car restoration business in Arizona. In addition, Garrett allegedly purchased a Nissan 350Z and a Mercedes SUV while receiving state benefits.
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System also known as AHCCCS launched an investigation after receiving a tip claiming Garrett was driving a Mercedes and living in a large home while receiving state benefits. Arizona residents must fall below a certain income to qualify for state Medicaid benefits. AHCCCS investigators say Garrett would not have qualified for state benefits if she had accurately reported her income.
See LINK
"AHCCCS" is Arizona's form of Medicaid. Basically this lady and her husband have been defrauding the Arizona taxpayers by falsifying their income in order to get free medical care, including prescriptions.
This is, of course, despicable. If you work retail pharmacy, you already know that you have many, many patients that you suspect. Here in Snootyville I have several patients that I suspect are doing the same thing. I hope more people come forward.
I think maybe I'll make a few anonymous tips myself. Maybe I'm all wrong in my observations. If that's true, the innocent will remain innocent. But if I'm right, I'm sure sick of working hard so other people can drive around in a Mercedes while I keep my beat up old Camry running.
I've made more than one report to the welfare fraud hotline. Not one single callback or any sort of followup.
ReplyDeleteFriend of mine is a police officer and she explained things from the point of view of the state investigator's office that has to deal with these scumbags. They are so ridiculously underfunded and understaffed (sound familiar?) that they are mandated from above to go after the big fish. Jerks like doctors that inflate the bills they submit so they can pay for whatever it is they buy or garbage like caretakers that 'work' full-time but in reality only stop by once or twice a week.
The scumbag welfare lifers that know how to work the system in this state know this. They know that as long as they're not ridiculously blatant, the state will ignore them and continue to bang out their monthly checks like clockwork. They know that as long as they don't marry their baby momma or baby daddy that actually does make money or own a home or whatever, they can continue to rake in thousands of dollars in benefits.
The system is broken. I'll continue to report these parasites until the day I retire. Will it do anything? Probably not, but it makes me hope that someday, karma will bite one of them in the ass.
And it is not good for those of us who need the benefits. There is always a cloud of suspicion (at least I sense one) when I present my Medicare card. I'm not elderly (at least to those other than my kids)so ipso facto, to some I'm a cheat.
ReplyDeleteIt's one more thing. . .
I understand the frustration. However, something to think about: A person I know was doing well. She had a nice car (paid for), nice clothes, 2 kids, and a nice house (paid for). Suddenly, her husband was killed in a car accident and she was diagnosed with cancer. She suffered a major loss of income and was forced to rely on public assistance for a while. She kept the car - why get rid of it? It was paid for and reliable. She kept the nice clothes, because, as with the car, it'd be silly to get rid of them. She also kept the home because it was paid for and, again...it'd be silly to get rid of it. She struggles to pay her bills. She struggles to feed her family. She doesn't look like she should qualify for any type of assistance, but she does, and with good reason.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm sure that's it. Every single one of the dozens of people I suspect as defrauding the American taxpayers all have a story just like that one. I'm the one with the problem.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm sure you are right about most of them. However, there are some who are not scammers. Like the person in my story above.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I make 6 figures a year and have worked hard for what I have. When I was a child, my family did get public assistance, we had no choice. It wasn't wanted, but we had to survive. I was in 5th grade and homeless, but I ended up with a 4 year degree from a well respected university and I'm doing well. I often bring food to the homeless people on the corner, but I too get pissed off when I see the people with the nice cars and phones at the store. I know. I get it. But, really, there are some people who are legit.
No, you're not getting it. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteLet's just go ahead and stick our heads back in the sand to protect a few legit people out there. And while we continue with that idiot liberal political correctness ideology (we sure wouldn't want to offend anyone or make anyone actually prove why they need assistance in a situation where people scam off the system left and right) the country will continue to go broke. Maybe once your six figure income turns into a take home of $20,000 after taxes to pay for all the federal entitlements, you'll wake up and say "Hey, maybe we should have gone after the people taking advantage of the system."
This blog post has NOTHING to do with people who have legitimate needs. If someone is suspected of fraud and all the warning signs and red flags are there, WHAT IS THE FREAKING PROBLEM with an audit of their situation??! If they genuinely need help it will clearly show up (I already said this in the blog post) and their innocence will prevail.
I would rather have a few people get audited by the system and prove their need rather than the public get taken to the cleaners over and over and over again by scammers. This is YOUR money and MY money, Mr. Six Figure. If you work so damn hard for it (I know I do for mine) why the hell aren't you more concerned about protecting it? Is your precious political correctness really more important than the financial health of all of us? Really?
I'm not sure what your past has to do with it. Apparently you're trying to justify what you're saying by telling us you had it tough as a kid. Unfortunately, that only supports my position. If you had it so tough, you should be quite a bit more concerned about keeping what you worked so hard to get. And for the record, I have a very poor and humble background too. And BECAUSE I worked so damn hard to get out of it, I'm MAD AS HELL when people try to take it out of my pocket... which is exactly what the people who defraud the system are doing.
Kind of like pain pills. Nine out of ten are abusers but since that one realllllly needs it.
ReplyDeleteNobody should be ripping off the system. It was meant to be short term. But - I try not to judge. I don't know the backstory of most people. If I KNOW, for a fact, that someone is abusing the system, then yes, I will be pissed. But if I don't have all the facts, then I will reserve judgement. It is hard. But who am I to judge? I admit, I have not so nice thoughts about people at times, but that's my problem. If I have a legitimate concern, with proof, I will be the first to turn a person in. If just a suspicion, though, I can't.
ReplyDeleteThis blog post has NOTHING to do with people who have legitimate needs.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's the problem. The second that anyone brings up the problem that is welfare fraud, people automatically think that you're attacking welfare in general.
If you need welfare, you need it. I don't have to like it but what else can you do? Go homeless and starve? Of course not. What I do have a problem with are the ones that scam the system and get away with it. Imagine the average american home. Picture a few nice cars parked in the driveway (Escalades, BMWs, etc all decked out with custom work). Now walk inside and see the 3 generations of the one family, not a single one with a job (despite the lack of any clear disability) and every last one of them on welfare.
And before you start whining about how that's an isolated case, I see it every single day. I also hear people giving advice on how to get recertified to stay on welfare. For example, getting fired from a part time job or changing official addresses or not getting married or avoiding the bank and using only cash. Sickening how once you figure out the loopholes, the money brought in through welfare checks, food stamps (sold to the local corner store for 50 cents on the dollar, sometimes less) and Medicaid (bogus Rx's sold to whatever scumbag willing to buy them and not just controlled substances), adds up to way more than the average job.
Will anything change? Of course not. Folks that have the authority to make real changes don't want to because it is precisely those same lifers that re-elect them time and time again.
I know the regulations vary by state (and yeah, the definition of "nice" car/home is subjective) but I've seen it mentioned a few times that people get to keep their property while getting welfare. I didn't think my state was too strict about the qualifications but maybe they are.
ReplyDeleteA good friend of mine applied for welfare about ten years ago. She happens to be one of the hardest working people I know. She often worked two jobs before finally landing something decent (the general manager of a retail store) where she was making about $50-60k/yr. She worked there 12 years then one day, totally out of left field, corporate shut down her store. She got unemployment for a while then when it ran out and she still hadn't found something comparable to her old job she had no choice but to take the "best" job offered to her - a part time cashier at a store in the mall.
All she really wanted was help buying food and Medicaid for her two kids until she could get a real job again. The welfare office denied her application because she owned a 9 year old Chevy SUV. It was probably valued at $5-6k max, but they said it put her over the limit for personal property. She owned nothing else.
So how the fuck are people driving around in a Mercedes or other "nice" car? And how does someone like this get denied (clearly trying, only asking for temporary help, pretty much the epitome of who welfare is supposed to exist for) but when the next guy walks in, someone who has never worked a day in their life and is blatantly milking the system, he gets every benefit the government has to offer. How does this happen? Are they lying on their application or are the social workers letting them slide through? I guess most of them probably just know how to qualify.
This system is majorly flawed and I support anyone who actively tries to fix it. Whether it be reporting fraud, voting for people who want to change it, or whatever else can be done. Crazy is NOT wrong, he has stated many times that he is not talking about the people who actually need help, and we should be mad about the ones who abuse it.
To anonymous at 5:45,
ReplyDeleteThe difference may be between those getting welfare for being poor and those getting medicaid for being disabled more than two years. The latter, to the best of my knowledge, only has an income test, not an asset test. The former, which your friend experienced, has an asset test. I'm guessing the BMW types are on disability.
I know you know it's not just pharmacy, but many areas. My ex-wife worked in public housing. Many people, all genders, would show up for interviews in designer clothes, the newest smart phones, for those identifying as female flawless hair and nails but no documented income.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally had to apply for SSDI (ehlers danlos syndrome & secondary dysautonomia - yeah I take pain meds too) I was sitting in the social security office feeling pretty devastated. And while I was waiting, waiting, the couple sitting next to me were trying to get their story straight so they could come up with a plausible lie "to get some money."
ReplyDeleteF those people. Thanks for reporting fraud.
I worked with this woman, she is absolutely a horrible person. I had to call her once, She was my boss, since there was a problem at work and she must have answered on accident at first because she was screaming at her son. I called her name out a few times before she said something and she sounded caught off guard and started to deflect and say that she was too busy and would call back. She never did and acted like the conversation never happened. Anyway, there were a few more instances where I caught her in a lie. Our money count was constantly off and we had to be audited AND then she tried shifting the blame to me for that. Given AZ is a right to work state I don't know why she didn't just let me go. She was still driving a super nice car though, and where we worked you have to pay for parking, she had multiple tickets tacked up in the office like a fucking badge of honor and then went as far to rip one up in the street. Class A asshole with a super ego for fucking sure! I was not at all surprised to find out she was a criminal too. She's also on a watchlist now so that must be fun! :) She also once said she has PTSD due to a hospital visit but I'm sure that's a lie
ReplyDelete