Morning Wire The Ohio Fraud Investigation That Couldn’t Be Ignored
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May 9, 2026 
Luke Rosiak, investigative reporter known for data-driven probes, walks through a months-long dive into Ohio Medicaid payments. He describes using DOJ Doge data and building tools to parse 40GB of records. He highlights large home-health waivers, family caregivers being paid, concentrated billing hubs in immigrant communities, and the legal and policy roadblocks to enforcement.
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DOGE Data Exposed Hidden Medicaid Spending
- DOGE's 40GB Medicaid dataset unlocked visibility into billions in state billing that was previously a government black box.
- Luke Rosiak built a custom server and programs to mine the dataset and identify unusually large non-medical payments.
Ohio Waivers Created A Billable Companionship Market
- Ohio surfaced as a top spender on suspicious home-health payments because waivers let nonmedical companions bill Medicaid.
- In one year Ohio paid about a billion dollars for home health care services that often amount to companionship or family members watching relatives.
Fraud Concentrated In Immigrant Urban Cores
- Fraud hotspots concentrated in urban cores with refugee and immigrant communities where parallel economies emerged.
- Rosiak found whole neighborhoods where daycares and home care businesses shifted from normal commerce to Medicaid billing.