Targeting the Hungry?

"The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." So said Anatole France in 1894. The point he was making, of course, is that the law can unfairly target the poor, even though it is dressed up to look even-handed.

In Pennsylvania, the law forbids rich and poor alike from cheating the Commonwealth through fraud and deception. So far so good. But how does the picture look when we consider enforcement?

Start with the Food Stamp Program, the most important resource we have for people who are at risk of hunger. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) receives over $6 million annually to prevent fraud in that Program. According to the OIG's 2000-01 report, last year it recovered about $14 million in food stamp benefits from people who were not eligible, which is about 2 percent of the $650 million that the Food Stamp Program spent last year in Pennsylvania.

Compare that to the Medicaid, a $9.5 billion program that is 15 times larger than food stamps. According to a January 23rd editorial in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Medicaid billing errors by hospitals, drug companies and other medical providers cost taxpayers big bucks. States that have studied the problem have found an error rate of at least 5 percent or higher. Both the OIG and the Attorney General investigate fraud in Medicaid, but their combined budgets for that purpose is smaller than what the OIG has just to investigate people in the Food Stamp Program.

In December the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed the Whistleblower's Act (HB 1285). It targets fraud and abuse in the provision of services by private businesses to state and local governments. According to a January 7th article in The Patriot-News, law enforcement officials believe "at least 10 percent of state and local tax dollars are lost to fraud and abuse by government contractors and suppliers each year." Passage of the Act by the Senate is in doubt because of the opposition of the healthcare industry. (At the federal level, 41 percent of the recoveries under such a law are health-related).

Something is wrong with this picture: fraud by people seeking food is pursued vigorously while fraud by people seeking profit is pursued reluctantly.

Fraud and abuse by anyone, anywhere should be prosecuted. And if we truly intend to guard the public purse and respect for the law, we must not target the hungry.

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