Officers in Maine have suspended state Medicaid funds to a Somali-run charity after greater than 1,000,000 {dollars} in doable fraud was found in a number of audits of the charity’s companies.
The Maine Division of Well being and Human Providers (DHHS) has cancelled MaineCare funds to Gateway Group Providers after the audits discovered that the charity over billed the state for $1,068,598 from March 2021 by December 2022. The money was supposedly to cowl the prices of “deciphering companies” to Somali migrants, the Bangor Day by day Information reported.
This identical group has been underneath investigation earlier than. Gateway reportedly overbilled for greater than $600,000 between 2015 and 2018, and remains to be underneath a cloud of suspicion for different violations discovered throughout a 3rd state audit accomplished in 2024.
The suspension of funding comes on the tail of the crimson flags thrown up in regards to the charity by U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the highest Republican on the Home oversight committee, who warned the U.S. Treasury of welfare fraud being dedicated by Gateway.
Gateway was based in 2015 by Somali migrant Abdullahi Ali who grew to become the topic of scrutiny for launching a 2024 bid to run for president of Jubaland, an autonomous area within the southern a part of Somalia, on the identical time his Gateway Providers charity was defrauding the state of 1,000,000 in improperly billed companies.
Gateway was not solely staffed and run by Somali migrants, although. The company additionally has connections to plenty of outstanding Democrats in Maine, together with Democrat State Senator Chloe Maxmin, and Democrat strategists Joanne D’Arcangelo and B.J. McCollister, the latter of whom served within the Joe Biden’s 2020 marketing campaign for the White Home and a chief of workers to Maine Democrat Senate President Troy Jackson.
Assistant Maine Senate Minority Chief Republican Matt Harrington has been elevating considerations about Gateway and different doable MaineCare cheats since Might.
“That is taxpayer cash, and we must be wanting into this, and I’m relieved that the federal authorities is lastly stepping in, I believe, largely as a result of inaction of the leaders in Maine,” Harrington mentioned.
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