Opinion contributors
Bipartisanship may be scarce in Washington and Columbus alike, but both sides of the aisle know Ohio taxpayers ought not foot the bill for fraud. That’s why State Reps. Paula Hicks-Hudson and Jeffrey Crossman just introduced a commonsense bill: the Ohio False Claims Act, which would encourage and reward whistleblowers who report fraud against Ohio.
The proposal is modeled after the federal False Claims Act (FCA), a vehicle to empower and incentivize regular people to combat abuse of taxpayer funds. Under the FCA, anyone can file a whistleblower lawsuit on the government’s behalf – and be awarded a portion of the funds ultimately recovered.
The bill’s benefit to Ohioans would be immediate. For instance, the federal agency that jointly funds state Medicaid programs offers states with qualifying reward laws an additional 10% of health care recoveries. When FCA recoveries for Medicaid fraud are divvied up, Ohio currently keeps about 31%. That share would jump to roughly 41% if the Ohio FCA becomes law. Until then, Ohio is leaving millions of Ohioans’ dollars on the table when the U.S. Justice Department recovers funds in cases involving Ohio Medicaid money.
The U.S. government already leverages the federal FCA to stop scams perpetrated in Ohio. Last year, the Department of Justice recovered over $20 million in a whistleblower-initiated case alleging fraudulent self-dealing at an Akron hospital system. The U.S. reached another $10 million settlement last...
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