Buckeye lawmaker outraged after bill to tackle Medicaid fraud, abuse gets vetoed

Arizona House Majority Leader Michael Carbone, a Buckeye Republican, denounced Gov. Katie Hobbs for vetoing legislation he sponsored. The legislation, Carbone claims, would crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Arizona’s Medicaid program.

Under House Bill 2449, the state would have created new verification and enrollment requirements and innovative presumptive eligibility determinations for AHCCCS.

“The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System already has a number of efficient and effective member eligibility processes,” Hobbs said, in her veto letter. “This legislation would expend state resources on inefficient administrative redundancies with no clear return on investment."

Carbone responded by releasing a statement claiming the AHCCS was ineffective.

“By its own estimate, the poorly named Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System has wasted over $3 billion in improper Medicaid payments since 2018, most of which is from failing to properly verify the eligibility of enrollees,” he said in a press release. “HB2449 would have closed loopholes that allow key eligibility factors to go unchecked during the Medicaid enrollment process and would have required more frequent eligibility checks.

Carbone further claims other states implemented the same safeguards, without incurring additional costs.

He also repeated claims categorizing Hobbs as thoughtless.

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Governor Hobbs has been reckless with Arizona’s Medicaid program,” he said. “In 2023, it was the Republican legislature that forced the Hobbs administration to expedite the removal of hundreds of thousands of ineligible people from the Medicaid rolls, which saved Arizona taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. My legislation would have led to even more savings.”