DOGE Reveals How $4.3 Billion in Medicaid Waste Slipped Through the Cracks

Taxpayers paid billions in duplicate Medicaid coverage between 2019 and 2021 as patients moved states without being disenrolled from their previous plans. Major insurance companies received hundreds of millions in overpayments, and the government is only now trying to fix it.

Key Facts:

From 2019 to 2021, taxpayers funded up to $4.3 billion in duplicate Medicaid payments.
About 660,000 patients each year were enrolled in Medicaid in more than one state.
Centene received $620 million in duplicate payments, Elevance $346 million, and UnitedHealth Group $298 million.
COVID-era policies made it harder for states to disenroll Medicaid recipients, increasing duplication.
States like Florida, Georgia, and Indiana had some of the highest rates of duplicate payments.

The Rest of The Story:

According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, over 270 insurance companies were paid twice for the same Medicaid patients when individuals moved states but weren’t removed from the old state’s system.

Medicaid, which is administered by states but funded jointly with the federal government, lacks a central tracking system to flag and prevent these duplicate enrollments.

COVID-19 policies complicated the problem.

Federal rules during the pandemic restricted states from removing people from Medicaid, making it easier for individuals to receive duplicate coverage across state lines.

In just two years, the cost of duplicate payments jumped from $814 million in 2019 to $2.1 billion in 2021.

Insurance companies say they’re simply following the rules.

Centene told staff not to close cases for patients who moved out of state if they still showed as eligible in the system.

Meanwhile, federal officials claim they’re working with states to address the waste, but the federal government is the only entity with complete visibility into enrollments.

Commentary:

The fact that the government allowed over $4 billion in Medicaid waste to occur is staggering.

Programs like Medicaid are already on shaky financial ground, and this kind of mismanagement only accelerates their decline.

Americans are being told these programs need more funding—but what’s the point if the existing money isn’t being tracked or spent responsibly?

This isn’t just bureaucratic red tape; it’s systemic failure.

Medicaid has been around since the 1960s.

There is no excuse for not having a centralized system to prevent duplicate enrollments.

Basic technology could have caught these double payments, but it was never implemented.

This level of carelessness makes you wonder where else government spending is going off the rails.

States claim they can’t see enrollments across borders, while the feds claim they’re working on it.

That finger-pointing does nothing for the taxpayer footing the bill.

And while some in the media are quick to panic over Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, the DOGE initiative seems to be one of the few places actually rooting out this kind of fraud.

Americans should welcome this kind of audit and accountability, not fear it.

If billions can be wasted without anyone noticing, how much more is hidden under the surface?

Fixing this doesn’t require political grandstanding.

It requires functional systems and the will to confront entrenched inefficiencies—something government seems unwilling or unable to do without outside pressure.

The Bottom Line:

The U.S. government wasted over $4 billion by paying for Medicaid patients twice due to outdated systems and poor coordination.

This isn’t a fluke—it’s a warning.

Taxpayers deserve better oversight, especially when entitlement programs are already stretched thin.

It’s time to stop tolerating waste and start demanding real reform.