McDonnell asks state police to review Medicaid video

Richmond Times Dispatch ^ | July 23, 2011 | By Olympia Meola

[DeaconBenjamin]

Gov. Bob McDonnell is asking Virginia State Police to review a video released this week that appears to be hidden-camera footage of an exchange in a Richmond Medicaid office in which a staffer advises a man not to disclose a drug and prostitution business on a Medicaid application.

The 9 minute, 29 second video was posted on the website of Project Veritas as the fourth in a series of "undercover investigations into Medicaid fraud."

On Friday, Richmond officials announced that the city will join forces with the Virginia attorney general's office to review the matter.

The attorney general's office has a unit dedicated to investigating Medicaid fraud and abuse.

In the video supposedly from a Richmond office, a man poses as a Russian and asks about Medicaid for his father, saying his line of work is "like what you might call like Bob Marley Pharmaceutical."

He says he doesn't want a home search and that "my father, he has girls who work for him and they might do a favor, a sexual favor, for client to kind of help business and so a lot of the girls need a lot of abortion."

"But like, we won't get in trouble for like running ... the drug business, or like, illegal prostitution?" he asks the staffer.

She replies, "Just leave that off your application. Don't put that on there."

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said in a statement, "The governor led the fight against Medicaid fraud as attorney general of Virginia. His Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was named the number one unit in the country in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"He is extremely concerned about any allegations of fraud and has asked the state police to review this video and take whatever actions are appropriate."

[blackdog]

What's to review? It's pretty standard stuff in state offices which exist to provide handouts and legitimacy to a populace which adapts it's patterns of existance to coincide with the need for more state employees and agencies to hand out more stuff.

Theater of the absurd.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DeaconBenjamin.

...hidden-camera footage of an exchange in a Richmond Medicaid office in which a staffer advises a man not to disclose a drug and prostitution business on a Medicaid application.

[terycarl]

What's to review? It's pretty standard stuff in state offices which exist to provide handouts and legitimacy to a populace which adapts it's patterns of existance to coincide with the need for more state employees and agencies to hand out more stuff

recently, Illinois, of all places, was trying to clean up medicare fraud by determining the true residence eligibility, and the income level of its claimants. The federal gov't denied them the authority to do so.....pathetic