CRIMES OF GREED –
Sept. 18, 2023 – Officials assert the schemes may have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, while sparking wide-reaching fraud investigations, dozens of indictments, and an overhaul of billing practices by Arizona’s Medicaid agency for crucial mental health and addiction treatment services.
Officials say the scheme has disproportionately affected Native Americans, with many left hundreds of miles from their families who remain back on reservations in northern Arizona, New Mexico and as far as Montana.
Navajo Nation leaders declared a public health emergency and created a task force to scour the sweltering streets of Phoenix for the displaced. Separately, an Arizona grass-roots group called Stolen People, Stolen Benefits has fielded calls, texts and Facebook messages from relatives of missing tribal members. The group, which relies on donations and hands out care packages on the Phoenix streets, says it has arranged bus trips and airfares for at least 100 tribal members wanting to return home. “We’ve been going nonstop,” said Reva Stewart, who co-founded the group after her cousin was lured into a Phoenix sober home.
In August, the New Mexico attorney general unveiled a campaign warning unsheltered people from “being lured” into traveling across state lines “to illegitimate recovery facilities.” The Blackfeet Nation in Montana in July declared a state of emergency aimed at helping displaced members, while one of the state’s senators, Jon Tester (D), demanded an investigation from the federal agency that oversees Medicaid services.
