The civil lawsuit names state Health Commissioner James McDonald and Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri.
NEW YORK — The Justice Department sued Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration Tuesday over its handling of a popular Medicaid home care program that enables over 200,000 New Yorkers to hire their own caregivers, court records show.
The civil lawsuit accuses state Health Commissioner James McDonald and Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri of making false or misleading statements about the consolidation of Medicaid’s consumer-directed personal assistance program, or CDPAP, under financial services company Public Partnerships LLC.
The DOJ’s complaint also accuses PPL of creating an “artificially attractive proposal” to administer the Medicaid program through a “sham bid process,” making false statements about its communications with state officials before winning the CDPAP contract and improperly inflating hourly billable rates upon taking over the program in 2025.
Federal prosecutors are seeking a court order freezing the flow of any gross revenue to PPL under the CDPAP contract and appointing a temporary receiver.
“New York’s failure to police a favored vendor that unlawfully siphoned millions of dollars of Medicaid funding is egregious and betrays the public trust,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement.
State Department of Health spokesperson Cadence Acquaviva refuted the claims in the lawsuit.
“This baseless complaint is the latest attempt by Washington...
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