MARCH 25, 2025|
Photo – Senator John Barrasso – Bigfoot99 file photo
In Washington, D.C., U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has introduced the Safeguarding Medicaid Act. The goal is to protect Medicaid beneficiaries and save billions in taxpayer dollars.
Under current federal guidelines, there is no federal standardized required asset verification process for Medicaid applicants. Individual states determine when and if they want to perform an asset verification. As a result, the country’s Medicaid population doubled, from 54 million four years ago in 2021 to nearly 100 million today.
The sudden increase caused an estimated $100 billion of money spent on Medicaid services going to financially ineligible individuals.
This legislation would eliminate this fraud by requiring the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop an asset verification program for all applicants and recipients in all states and territories.
Barrasso has long fought against Democrats, specifically Bernie Sanders, over federal schemes that pushed up the cost of health care and reduced the number of Americans who could access it. Five years ago, Senator Barrasso spoke out against the “Medicare for all” proposal being pushed by Sanders and other Democrats.
This week, Senator Barrasso said, “too many people across the country are abusing the Medicaid system. Medicaid was established to help children, pregnant women, seniors, and the disabled.”
The bill Wyoming’s senior senator introduced would eliminate fraud in Medicaid services while saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. Barrasso said the goal is to make sure high-quality care is accessible and reliable to those who qualify for Medicaid.
The bill quickly picked up co-sponsors, including Wyoming’s, Cynthia Lummis. Also signing on were Louisiana’s John Kennedy, Rick Scott of Florida, Eric Schmidt of Florida, and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, among others.
Out of 5.86 million asset verification requests made in 2021, the federal financial Asset Verification System detected 58 percent of applicants held undisclosed account balances. In 46 percent of the cases, applicants had account balances above the eligibility thresholds—a red flag indicating the extent of the corruption and abuse in the system.
