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Gaming the system

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

Welfare

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

At a time when Maryland and the U.S. government can least afford waste and fraud, new data reveals the state is second only to Connecticut in terms of money lost in food stamps to people ineligible for benefits.

Fiscal 2010 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show the state loses $6.11 for every $100 it gives in benefits -- for a total of about $60 million in 2010. (The state administers the program; aid comes from the federal government.)

The state says that the money lost is due to administrative errors that often give eligible beneficiaries more than they are allotted. Department of Human Resources spokesman Ian Patrick Hines said most of the money is recouped later, but did not provide documentation for that. He also said the agency has been focused on ensuring recipients receive benefits quickly, a problem in the past, and that it is now focused on improving accuracy.

But when speed is a higher priority than precision, it's not difficult to see why taxpayers are losing so much money. The other issue is fraud. About 1,300 cases were investigated in Maryland in the last year, according to a report in The Washington Examiner. Of those, 25 percent showed evidence of fraud. Hines said that the overall number of fraudulent cases is tiny -- but that is only because so few are investigated and prosecuted. As The Examiner points out, at the same time enrollment in the food stamp program more than doubled, the percentage of recipients investigated for fraud dropped precipitously. That is a recipe for abuse. So are standards for getting food aid.

In the past few years the government has "simplified" the eligibility process. For example, it does not look at bank statements, property or vehicles when assessing whether a person meets aid requirements. That leaves open the possibility that someone with a hefty savings account could qualify for benefits so long as they can prove their income is no more than 200 percent of the poverty line.

Conservative activist James O'Keefe showed how easy it is to game the system last summer. He released a series of videos showing government workers in Ohio helping men who said they were drug dealers, drove an $800,000 car and had a 12-year-old sister involved in prostitution, get Medicaid benefits in that state.

When one worker heard about the men's work in "Bob Marley pharmaceuticals," she said, "I know what you're saying, and I don't want to hear what you're saying."

We are long past the point of being able to offer unlimited benefits of any kind in the U.S., whether Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or food subsidies. And massive amounts of evidence show the government does a terrible job of ensuring that those benefits go only to the right people. Liberals believe speed in delivering benefits is more important than accuracy. Fine. But they should at least admit when there is no financial incentive to prevent waste and fraud, taxpayers should expect lots of it.