The U.S. Government Accountability Office released more reports last month on the perpetual problem of government payment errors, this time within the Medicaid program, and the results were, yet again, depressing.
The mammoth program, which covers 70 million people, had a budget of $576 billion last year, and made $346 billion in total payments. Unfortunately, $36.3 billion of those payments were improper—an error rate of 10.5 percent.
And, despite ongoing efforts to improve data quality and eligibility screening, the problem is getting worse, rising from a 9.8 percent error rate in fiscal year 2015.
It is extremely unlikely that any heads are going to roll for such ongoing mismanagement. That accountability has always been the problem with government programs, particularly the very large ones.
President Donald Trump and House Republicans have suggested converting Medicaid to a block grant to states as part of their Obamacare reforms. Though block grants are not a panacea, and large states would still struggle with many payment errors, devolving power to the states could help reduce waste and fraud, while eliminating a layer of bureaucracy and offering the states more flexibility.