DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Minnesota’s massive Medicaid fraud a warning for Colorado.

A natural question follows. Does Colorado have a similar program? Like birds of a feather flocking together, both Minnesota and Colorado have a bad habit of expanding Medicaid, dating to the first expansion allowed by ObamaCare and continuing on up through COVID.

It turns out we do. The story begins with House Bill 24-1322. While the bill doesn’t create a carbon copy of Minnesota’s Department of Housing Stabilization, it did start the ball rolling on something even bigger, tasking the Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing (HCPF) with studying the feasibility of creating a similar program subsidizing both housing and nutrition in Colorado.

From the bill: “If HCPF determines that providing these services is budget neutral to the General Fund due to offsetting reductions in medical services and other expenditures, the department must seek federal authorization to cover the services by July 1, 2025.”

I looked briefly through the study produced by HCPF, and sure enough they concluded that this Medicaid expansion could be done without spending any extra money. They also found that you could shuffle some existing services around, bundling them up for convenience.

If you’re wondering how more government-subsidized services could happen without spending more money, Senate Bill 25-308, which implements the changes into law, spells it out. In broad strokes it’s more Medicaid “money laundering” with Colorado convincing the feds to give us money for something and then shifting state dollars to other priorities.

From the bill’s fiscal note: “Under the approved waiver, the state can now draw down federal Medicaid matching funds, and redirect the freed-up state funds to expand and enhance the services.”

Why, it’s almost as though massive fraud were built into everything done in response to COVID.