Entitlements, the gift that keeps on taking (from us, the taxpayers)!
Some Medicaid patients may be getting a 'free ride'
Snips: The whistleblower, who asked to remain anonymous due to current government employment, says local Medicaid patients request taxis under the guise of visiting a doctor's office, then use the cab for unrelated personal errands instead. The government-sponsored medical insurance organization routinely provides transportation to recipients who are not able to get to themselves to a medical facility.
One particular recipient who requested and received free taxi service to several medical appointments each week habitually left the office without seeing her doctor and used the cab to go shopping, WTOP's source says.
I work for a taxi company in upstate NY that does medicaid transportation, and I can tell you that while most of the people we deal with use our service for actual medical reasons, there are definitely a few that are definitely “abusing the system”.
What really gets me, we take a group of people to a drug counseling program (court ordered I believe), and on the ride to this place they are discussing how to get around the testing, so they can use without getting detected!
And they get all they other benefits of medicaid as well, while I play by the rules, and I cannot afford health insurance!