Homeless Health Insurance

Help for the homeless. Free water bottles, $30 spending money.

Nice touch.

In exchange for what?

Participating in Medicaid & Medi-Cal fraud.

The cost to the taxpayer?

"Tens of millions of dollars".

But hey, it's only money.

Residents said recruiters, also known as runners, would call out like street salesmen for anyone who had a multicolored Medi-Cal eligibility card: “Red, white and blue! Let it do what it do!”

A little later, the vans would leave Skid Row bound for one of the three hospitals. Some of the homeless people would receive medical treatments, court papers said, whether they needed them or not.

Why rob a bank? Stealing from a government bureaucracy is so much easier.

Investigators said recruits often received no medical care at all, or in some cases received faulty health care, as in the case of one person, identified as Recruit X, who court papers said was “given a nitroglycerin patch for her non-existent cardiopulmonary condition.” The treatment caused a dangerous drop in blood pressure that made her ill, investigators said.

She was recruited repeatedly, court papers said, and for her cooperation was paid money that she used to buy crack cocaine.

At least she put the money to good use.