Monday, the Small Business Administration suspended 27,486 Ohio borrowers tied to about $1.1 billion in suspected fraudulent pandemic loans.
Read that again. $1.1 billion.
Not (just) the $42 million in Medicaid charges that made headlines last week. More than a billion dollars, in one state, flagged in a single announcement.
This is not the government's money. It is our money!
Every dollar of it came from taxpayers who got up, went to work, and forwarded part of their paychecks to Washington on the promise that it would be spent with some measure of care. The Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to keep struggling small businesses alive during the worst of COVID. In many cases, it worked — it saved jobs.
However, we now find out that a staggering share of it appears to have been treated as free cash by people who knew the doors were wide open and the guards had gone home for the day.
The Medicaid cases tell the same story in miniature. One Cincinnati provider stands accused of billing more than 60,000 claims for care that was never delivered. According to state Medicaid officials, the state has now suspended 49 home health providers on top of nearly 300 since 2017.
These were not clever white-collar crimes. They were brazen ones, and they went on for years.
We are glad to see the indictments and the suspensions. Attorney General Dave Yost, the FBI, and state Medicaid investigators deserve credit for finally moving. But catching thieves after the money is gone is not the same as protecting it. The harder question is why the safeguards failed so completely in the first place, and who in Columbus was supposed to be watching.
A bill requiring electronic verification of in-home care is moving through the Statehouse. Pass it. Then keep going. To be frank, the people of Ohio are owed more than an arrest. They are owed their money back.
But sadly, that will probably never happen. Instead, someone from some government agency will provide a list of safeguards that will prevent this from ever happening again.
The only problem is, those safeguards are about $1.1 billion too late.
Questions, comments and letters to the editor are welcome. Email [email protected].