Unnecessary Medicaid premiums paid

“Just as a leaking faucet results in the loss of water for no gain to the homeowner, concurrent enrollment results in additional costs to taxpayers without a benefit to the people served by Medicaid,” writes Democrat Pat McCarthy, Washington state’s auditor. She wrote it in a summary statement for an October report about wasteful spending in Medicaid that hurts both state and federal taxpayers.

In an October report, “Examining Washington’s Concurrent Medicaid Enrollments,” the auditor’s office found millions of dollars of waste each year — about $8.6 million — caused by paying a premium for a...