Beyond all reckoning, the goofy DOGE geniuses did it! It’s done. For six years, they guarded this data like the nuclear codes. Yesterday, DOGE slapped it on the internet, ribbon-wrapped for Valentine’s Day. DOGE -- whose death was obviously slightly exaggerated -- just dropped a tactical nuke on both the vaccine debate and welfare fraud -- and launched the biggest crowdsourcing project in human history. Yesterday, Axios ran the story headlined, “Elon Musk declares victory with Medicaid data release.”

He should declare victory. DOGE teams originally accessed the HHS data in February, over the backs of hysterical Democrats and enough lawsuits to keep a medium-sized law firm busy for a decade. Since then -- crickets. Until now. And it was the most Elon solution ever. They open-sourced HHS’s top-secret Medicaid claims database -- 11 gigabytes worth -- and dumped it on the internet before Democrats could even say “injunction.”

The release was framed as an anti-fraud move, surfing a wave of public outrage washing out of Minneapolis and Nick Shirley’s viral video. In making the announcement (on X, of course), DOGE-HHS pointed out, “For example, using this dataset, it would have been possible to easily detect the large-scale autism diagnosis fraud seen in Minnesota.” The space billionaire quickly chimed in. “Medicaid data has been open-sourced, so the level of fraud is easy to identify,” Musk wrote. “DOGE is not a department, it’s a state of mind,” he added. 🎶 Wastin’ away again in DOGE-eritaville. 🎶

The 11GB file can be searched or downloaded at OpenData HHS, and includes aggregated provider-level claims data, by billing code, by month, between 2018 and 2024 -- bookending the whole pandemic period. (Note -- It does not contain patient-level data.) It includes records from all Medicaid claims submitted by providers for reimbursement during that period.)

This is clearly not just a DOGE project. It is a coordinated effort across the Trump Administration. For example, timed with the release of the data, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a related new program. Not only have they open-sourced the research, but they have gamified it. Bessent said Treasury was setting up a website for people to report Medicare fraud -- and they’ll get up to 30% of whatever’s fined and recovered. [snip]

If the $1 trillion fraud estimate is even half right, the government just turned fraud detection into the world’s largest treasure hunt. Some kid in a bedroom with a laptop, a chatbot, and a case of energy drinks might make more money this year than most hedge fund managers…