New York’s mind-boggling $124 billion taxpayer-funded Medicaid program is riddled with fraud and waste, US regulator Dr. Mehmet Oz said Sunday — and dogged federal investigators are digging into it.
“In the beautiful city of New York and surrounding New York state, we know that there are a lot of people who are providing services that we don’t think are legitimate, that are costing the taxpayers a lot of money,” said Oz, who heads the US Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, on 77 WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” program.
“That ends up not only hurting taxpayers, but it hurts the actual people who are vulnerable. … who need these services,” he told host John Catsimatidis.
“The dishonesty around some of these programs, in Medicaid in particular, costs a lot of money that has stripped the guts out of the affordability of these systems,” the celebrity doc said.
Oz did not provide specifics, but his office is probing aspects of New York’s massive program, an insider told The Post.
Medicaid is the public-health insurance program for the needy, and New York has among the most generous programs in the country, covering services provided in hospitals, nursing homes and a growing home-care industry amid an aging population.
More than 6.8 million New Yorkers — 34% of the state’s population — are currently covered by Medicaid.
As The Post recently reported, a 2022 federal audit accused New York drivers of swiping up to $196 million from a badly managed Medicaid transportation program through rides that “did not meet or may not have met Medicaid requirements.”
The money was paid to companies enrolled in the Non-Emergency Medical Transportation program.
The Post also recently uncovered how the state allegedly lost $1.2 billion in taxpayer money to scammers through the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program and how it spends up to $400 million a year on Social Adult Day Care centers, which mostly duplicate the offerings of senior centers.
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Both of these programs, as with NEMT, were part of the former Gov. Andrew Cuomo-era Medicaid overhauls that have been continued by successor Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul’s office defended the administration’s management of the Medicaid program.
“Before this federal administration even took office, Governor Hochul took action in 2024 with sweeping CDPAP [Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program] reforms that shut down hundreds of wasteful Medicaid middlemen and saved over $2 billion for state and federal taxpayers in the past year alone,” a Hochul spokesperson said.
“Governor Hochul is laser focused on cutting out waste, fraud and abuse – and if Dr. Oz really cares so much about affordability, he should tell Washington Republicans to stop ripping healthcare away from everyday New Yorkers.”