Josh Levin

“In 1978, the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare reported264 that it lost between $5.5 and $6.5 billion of its $150 billion annual budget to fraud, abuse, and waste. However, just 15 percent of that $5.5 to $6.5 billion—less than 1 percent of HEW’s yearly spending—got siphoned away due to “unlawful, willful misrepresentation (fraud) or excessive services and program violations (abuse).” Further, less than $500 million of the agency’s losses was attributable to the partially federally funded AFDC program. The vast majority of those debits, around $4 billion, came via Medicaid and other health care initiatives”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

“As of 1970, the Associated Press reported, thirty-nine states were “illegally denying the poor either due process or deserved relief benefits.”141”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth