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| Government Corruption | |
| City Journal On Decades Long CA Corruption Culture | |
| 2026-04-26 | |
California’s welfare machine is bleeding billions a year. And, as we recently reported, few programs are more troubled than the state’s $30 billion, Medi-Cal backed In-Home Supportive Services Program. IHSS has become one of the nation’s largest fraud magnets, losing as much as $12 billion to scam artists every year. The program sounds compassionate: pay people to care for their disabled and elderly family members at home, rather than warehousing them in facilities. But the system’s design created perverse incentives that all but guarantee corruption. A growing cadre of whistleblowers has confirmed what the numbers suggest: IHSS is not merely plagued by accidental waste but has become a way for criminals to get rich quick. The latest of these is a former California law-enforcement official who has worked on Medi-Cal fraud cases. Our source has seen IHSS fraud happen on an industrial scale: homes run by “overlords” who stuff them with sickly Californians, cut off from their families, to pocket the state’s money. Yet the state doesn’t care. Fraud routinely goes unpunished, as California judges downgrade felony charges and let sympathetic offenders off with community service; meantime, IHSS can’t seem to recover a single stolen dollar. This interview, conducted on the condition of anonymity, has been edited for length, clarity, and to preserve anonymizing details. City Journal: How widespread is IHSS and Medi-Cal fraud? Source: It’s been around forever. This kind of fraud has been happening for decades in California. The problem is that, even when we press charges, judges just plea cases down because they consider them insignificant. CJ: What level of fraud gets investigated or prosecuted? Source: I wasn’t going to go after $5,000. I had to look at it and say, “Whoa, this is crazy fraud.” In my view, it’s worth a look if the probable fraud totals over $200,000. But when I tried to volley a $500,000 alleged fraud case over to the FBI, they said that wasn’t enough for them even to look. The justice system ends up reducing fraud charges down to a misdemeanor and giving offenders community service. They never go to jail—that’s just the way California operates. As a member of law enforcement, you put your heart and soul into a case, turning every stone to prove that the suspect is a dirtbag. Then it goes to trial, and his case gets pled down, because the government sympathizes with IHSS providers. The way the government looks at it, these people are doing God’s work. They’re doing work nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to wipe the rear ends of these old people, so why are we going to penalize the provider when he’s just trying to help? CJ: What makes the IHSS system so vulnerable to fraud? Source: It’s really easy to take advantage of because there’s no checks. No one is checking. The system is based on trust. They trust that you’re telling the truth. They trust that you’re doing your job. They trust that everything is on the up-and-up when you submit your timecard. Fraud is all over the place. Social workers have caseloads of roughly 200 or 300 people, and their visits are announced. When they show up, the house is in tip-top shape. Meantime, the patients are living in subpar conditions. It’s really easy to hide the abuse. | |
| Posted by:NoMoreBS |