Why New York’s leaders blatantly aid and abet Medicaid fraud

No matter how much public shaming they receive, New York politicians not only refuse to crack down on massive Medicaid fraud, they seem eager to cover it up.

Consider The Post’s recent visits to adult day-care centers in Flushing.

In January, The Post exposed numerous centers sucking up Medicaid dollars while providing little, if any, of the services the cash is supposed to pay for.

Trump Medicaid czar Mehmet Oz then visited centers in Flushing and posted videos showing the ludicrous number of them in close proximity.

On just one block alone, he pointed to “hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits being made from Social Adult Daycare Centers,” a k a SADCs.

Team Trump even threatened to hold up federal payments to the state over potential fraud.

Yet, despite all the heat, when The Post’s Chadwick Moore visited those centers last week, he found little changed.

Many of the 77 centers clustered in a mere one-mile radius were shuttered or lacked patients, much as The Post found six months earlier — no real change, despite knowing the feds are watching.

How much fraud are we looking at here?

Well, Flushing’s SADCs alone billed a whopping $733 million for Medicaid services from 2018 to 2024.

Livingwell Day Care, for one, billed $27 million for 26,500 patients, per federal data.

Yet Moore found lights there dimmed and empty tables in a mess hall; no sign of any seniors.

At Bao Kang Adult Day Care, all common areas were likewise empty, though a worker claimed she serves up 200 people a day.

In 2018-’24, Bao Kang billed Medicaid $32 million for 43,900 patients.

Neither center has been officially charged with fraud.

Medicaid-supported SADCs are supposed to serve only patients who suffer from a chronic illness or disability, yet many of these Flushing facilities plainly have nothing beyond what regular senior centers offer.

Oz blasted “a lack of proper state oversight” as these “centers have become cash cows for criminal syndicates.”

Meanwhile, state pols — e.g., Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, state Sen. John Liu (who represents the area) — are doing their darnedest to hide the fraud.

• Moore had to get Medicaid billing info from the feds because New York won’t release it publicly.

• Hochul ignores demands for a comprehensive audit, charges Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt.

• James oversees a Medicaid fraud unit that ranks 49th among states for criminal probes per billion in Medicaid spending.

• Liu tries to deny anything at all is amiss: “It would be misguided to . . . paint Flushing as the epicenter of this kind of fraud, if it exists.”

If it exists?

Who are they trying to protect? Don’t they care about the taxpayers footing the bill?

Because the feds pick up over half the Medicaid tab, New York pols think it’s free money: The more that’s billed (even via fraud), the more cash flowing to the Empire State.

Except it’s flowing to criminals, and comes from taxpayers federal and state.

Apparently, most of New York’s leaders see the criminal class as their natural allies.