HERNANDEZ DOUBLES DOWN ON PLEDGE TO AUDIT MEDICAID AFTER RAIDS HIT INDUSTRY THAT FUNDED HOCHUL

 

Nine adult day care centers that gave the Governor $5,000 each billed Medicaid $49 million in 2022

Republican and Conservative comptroller nominee Joseph Hernandez is doubling down on his pledge to audit every Medicaid dollar through a new Fraud Strike Team. His call follows Tuesday's raids on adult day care centers by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the state Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, the IRS and the NYPD across Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens.

 

That same industry has been a reliable source of money for Hochul. She received roughly $55,000 in campaign contributions from social adult day care centers and their operators in and around Flushing, Queens, according to a New York Post review of state records. Nine centers gave her 2022 campaign $5,000 each, and those same nine billed Medicaid about $49 million that year. Livingwell Day Care gave $5,000 in 2022, the same year it billed Medicaid $5.8 million.

 

Baoli Zhang, an operator of Bao Kang Adult Day Care, gave Hochul $10,000 personally, and Bao Kang gave another $5,000, all on the same day in January 2022. Companies associated with Zhang billed Medicaid at least $32 million between 2018 and 2024, according to the Post. Neither Zhang nor any of these centers has been accused of wrongdoing.

 

"While Medicaid poured billions into this industry, the Governor took its money and Albany looked the other way," said Hernandez. "It took federal agents with search warrants to do the job New York's watchdogs wouldn't. Not one dollar of this industry's money came to me. As Comptroller, my Fraud Strike Team will audit every Medicaid dollar and follow the money all the way to the people cashing the checks, and to the politicians cashing theirs."