The next national poster child for fraud

It's not enough for her just to set up yet another hotline to report ICE misconduct — Healey must accept her share of the blame for Medicaid fraud and face the heat.

Does she really want to be sitting in front of a congressional committee taking pointed questions from Republican congressmen?

National GOP leaders have already cited examples of fraud and abuse in Massachusetts and would love to grill Healey on what she's doing to prevent more theft.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a rash of letters to Healey and nine other state governors earlier this month demanding they produce records showing how they are policing the billions of dollars handed out to residents.

Healey is under pressure to provide written responses and "all responsive documents" about rooting out potential schemes by this Tuesday.

The committee earlier this month alleged the Minnesota governor, the Democratic party's vice presidential nominee in 2024, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison lied about what they knew about food stamp fraud and actively worked to "silence" whistleblowers.

If Healey isn't careful, she'll wind up in the same hot seat as Walz, who she lavishly praised when Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate

"This is a dream ticket," Healey infamously said of Harris and Walz two years ago. "People are going to come to know Tim Walz, and they're going to be really, really impressed."

Impressed is not the word most Americans would use to describe Walz now.

And there are plenty of examples in Massachusetts over the last few years of the similar kind of fraud uncovered in Minnesota.

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio last week announced her office of special investigations had uncovered more than $4.4 million in public benefits fraud.

Healey herself, when she was attorney general, announced in 2022 that her office's Medicaid Fraud Division recovered more than $71 million in stolen benefits.

"The tens of millions of dollars recovered by the Division during this fiscal year send a strong message that we are committed to ensuring that our MassHealth dollars are going to our most vulnerable residents and we take seriously attempts to defraud our important safety net health care system," Healey said then.

But since she became governor Healey has seemed more concerned about protecting illegal immigrants and slamming President Trump than rooting out Medicaid corruption right under her nose.

Healey and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced the new web portal to report ICE activity the same day DiZoglio announced the discovery of $2.4 million in SNAP fraud and $1.7 million in MassHealth and Medicaid fraud.

"Your submission might help the Governor's Office and/or Attorney General's office identify patterns of potential misconduct by federal agents, inform possible legal action or policy recommendations, and support affected residents," the web portal said.

Good to know what their real priorities are.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Joe Battenfeld
Boston Herald/(TNS)

Joe Battenfeld is a veteran Boston Herald political columnist and multimedia reporter.