Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), was in town earlier this month to pay homage at the most-holy shrine to Minnesota fraud, the Griggs-Midway building at 1821 W. University Avenue in St. Paul. Clearly, the feds have not forgotten about Minnesota fraud.
RealClearPolitics wrote (with video and transcript of the visit), quoting Dr. Oz,
Behind me is the Griggs-Midway building. It looks like a factory because it was a linen factory. They made cloth back there, and it was converted to an office building. You’ll notice all those little signs there — there are tons of businesses inside.
Roughly 400 Medicaid businesses were started in the building behind me over the last several years. They generated about $380 million of billing that you, the taxpayer, were putting up. That means roughly every business had a million dollars of billing.
It’s fraud central. As I noted back in the day, 1821 University Ave. was the No. 1 free-food address in the Feeding Our Future scandal. Dr. Oz later warns,
You’ll notice there is already a watch group observing us and people in cars taking pictures of us. They’re calling around trying to find out what’s going down.
And I’ll tell you, you don’t have to wonder. We’re here to figure out why these folks are being defrauded—why the people who live in Minnesota aren’t getting access to the care they deserve — because it’s been stolen.
While in town, Dr. Oz met with the state Dept. of Human Services (DHS). KSTP-5 reported at the time,
Dr. Oz’s visit came days after CMS sent notice to the state, saying its plan to address fraud lacked specifics and enforceable timelines, and demanding the state revise that plan or risk losing up to about $2 billion in 2026 meant to help vulnerable Minnesotans.
That’s “billion” with a “b.” As it happens,
The state has until Jan. 30 to submit a revised plan, according to the federal notice.
Hey, that’s today! We’ll see if the state of Minnesota takes this ultimatum seriously.
