CLICK THE ARROW ABOVE TO WATCH THE 10 MIN VIDEO
Independent journalist reveals shocking similarities between Medicaid fraud in Minnesota, Maine
by Liz Collins and Steve Robinson, AlphaNews.org, January 13, 2025
Minnesota and Maine are two different states, but have a lot in common when it comes to Medicare fraud. Steve Robinson, an independent journalist and editor-in-chief of the Maine Wire, has been sounding the alarm and pointed out some of the incredible similarities with Liz Collin on her podcast.
Robinson and Collin appeared together on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about fraud in their respective states. The similarities can’t be ignored, but the mainstream media appear to be doing just that, according to Robinson.
“I find the similarities … remarkable. I think Minnesota expanded their Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act earlier than Maine did. The programs are a little bit different. But the way that the programs are being systematically exploited by very committed groups of actors who appear to have connections to foreign countries or at least foreign political factions is eerily similar,” Robinson said.
In highlighting one of the connections between Minnesota and Maine, Robinson said, “We find time and time again organizations that have suspicious billing patterns within the MaineCare program that when we find clusters of these, for example, home care LLCs at a given address and we go knock on the doors and nobody’s home … We’ll look into those businesses and the owners and we’ll find that they’ve also got LLCs in Minnesota and they’ve also got properties in Minnesota.”
Given these and other similarities, Robinson spoke about what seems to be the bigger picture: “We find these connections all the time and it leads me to believe that we’re not dealing with, as the national media has suggested, a separate and discrete scandal under Gov. Tim Walz in Minnesota and a separate and discrete scandal in Maine under Gov. Janet Mills.”
“These are really the same thing … it’s one organization that I believe is backed by nation-state-level actors. I think the government of Somalia is backing this as a nation-building project to increase the flow of remittance money into the country,” he said.
Much like Feeding Our Future scandal in Minnesota, Robinson detailed a nonprofit called Gateway Community Services in Maine.
“We first started writing about Gateway Community Services, primarily an LLC that was founded by a Somali-American refugee, Abdallahi Ali … what drew our attention to it was the high level of connections with the main Democratic Party but also the fact that this LLC and the nonprofit were getting no-bid contracts from the Mills administration to engage in activities that very closely mirrored, basically were identical to political canvassing,” Robinson said.
Robinson told Collin that “when we dug a little further, we discovered that Abdullahi Ali, the CEO, was in fact running for president of Jubaland, Somalia, the semi-autonomous region of southern Somalia. So at the same time, he’s receiving five million a year roughly in MaineCare money, millions of dollars in no-bid contracts, close to $700,000 in a PPP loan, and likely some forms of government money through partnerships and arrangements we don’t even know about or haven’t discovered yet.”
Click Here to Watch/Listen to the Newest We the People Convention Weekly News & Opinion Podcast!
In recalling what Collin told Tucker Carlson, Robinson said that in Maine, “now we’re seeing suspected fraud, all kinds of Medicaid programs. This is where we also see the similarities. Daycare programs, housing programs, non-emergency transportation programs, all seems to be the same playbook.”
On key difference, however, is daycare fraud does not appear to be as rampant in Maine as in Minnesota.
“The daycares aren’t so much a thing. What we really have is a blossoming of personal support services. So under our MaineCare rules, you can be paid for providing assistance with the tasks of daily living. So these could be shopping for groceries, cleaning your house, bathing,” he said.
“It’s an open question as to whether these services are actually being provided … you can go and bill the state of Maine up to a million dollars, be audited, and then they’ll turn off the spigot eventually when you can’t show any documentation for any of the services you claim to have provided. But there’s never any criminal charges. You don’t pay the money back,” Robinson added.
Robinson also spoke about the response of the mainstream media, or the lack of it: “They have an ideology and a worldview that says that to do any reporting that’s critical of a Somali person is somehow racist and bad.”
“It’s very, very bizarre the way the mainstream outlets have handled this, both in Minnesota and here in Maine,” he added.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE AT ALPHANEWS.ORG
