Friends and neighbors,
Minnesota’s fraud problems have been building for a long time, and so has the pattern of Gov. Walz and Democrat leaders looking the other way. There have been numerous reports of DHS employees who spent years reporting fraud internally and being told to ignore it. There was a local media story this week about one whistleblower who was eventually fired for continuing to raise concerns.
On top of that, the Trump administration has now frozen another $91 million in federal funds to Minnesota over the Democrats’ failure to stop fraud. Instead of cooperating with federal investigators to protect that funding, DHS leadership keeps making excuses. The Office of the Legislative Auditor looked into this and found that DHS already had the legal tools to act, but chose not to.
This week on the Senate floor, I offered an amendment that would have helped us get some accountability and apply consequences for failure to stop fraud. My amendment would have removed the Commissioner of the Department of Human Services if fraud in the Medicaid program exceeds 2% of DHS's annual budget. Common sense, right?
Unfortunately, Democrats rejected my amendment.
I still think it was a good idea. Right now, it’s easy for those leaders to deflect and make excuses. When a leader knows their job is on the line, they pay attention quick.
You can watch my floor comments about this amendment here: https://youtube.com/shorts/TMQwk2yILFY
Please let me know if you have any questions. As always, thanks for staying informed, and thanks for your feedback and your ideas.
God Bless,