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Ohio’s Auditor of State, Keith Faber, just dropped an interim audit that should make every taxpayer sit up straight. The review of the Medicaid programs for the Aged, Blind and Disabled (ABD) found thousands of clear mistakes — including people with more than $1 million in assets still getting benefits and more than 3,000 deceased Ohioans who stayed on the rolls. This isn’t small bureaucracy hiccups. It is a wake-up call about Medicaid oversight in a $40 billion program that serves roughly 3 million Ohioans.
Audit’s Shocking Findings
The audit sampled 1,500 ABD enrollees and found 49, or about 3%, were not eligible. Twenty-five of those failures were due to assets—bank accounts, property, investments—above the allowable limits. In that sample, auditors even found three people with more than $1 million in resources. Across the full ABD population of roughly 498,885, the auditors identified 3,172 deceased people still enrolled and nearly $1.8 million paid on their behalf. The sample alone showed roughly $356,541 paid for ineligible sampled individuals. Those are hard numbers, not guesses.
How This Happened
The audit points to basic process failures: eligibility checks that aren’t done often enough, outdated application forms, ex‑parte renewals that skip proper verification, and weak data matching. In plain talk: the system relies on paperwork and outdated IT more than on actual fact-checking. Add to that the “pay and chase” approach where the state pays first and hunts for errors later, and you have a setup that invites waste, fraud and abuse. Organized fraud rings targeting home-care billing have also been reported as exploiting those gaps.
State Response and Needed Fixes
Auditor Keith Faber said taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for millionaires on Medicaid. The Auditor’s office will expand the review beyond the sample, which could show the problem is larger than the interim numbers suggest. Ohio Department of Medicaid Director Scott Partika has touted recent steps—provider suspensions, enhanced analytics, and new prior‑authorization rules—but the audit shows those moves must translate into faster, smarter eligibility checks. Fixes should include routine cross‑checks with death records, more frequent resource verifications, updated application systems, and stopping faulty payments before money changes hands.
Why This Matters and What Comes Next
This is not just an abstract accounting problem. Every dollar paid incorrectly takes away care from someone who truly needs it and raises taxes or forces cuts elsewhere. The Auditor’s interim report gives Ohio leaders a clear set of targets: finish the full audit, pursue recoveries where appropriate, and turn words about oversight into stricter rules and functioning systems. If the state doesn’t act fast, Ohioans will keep paying for red tape and sloppy government while real needs go unmet — and that’s a cost none of us should accept.
