“I will not rubber-stamp billions of taxpayer dollars for a department that can’t account for the money it already has”

LANSING, Mich. — State Rep. Jim DeSana (R-Carleton) today voted against the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) budget, citing widespread Medicaid fraud, persistent oversight failures, and a troubling lack of accountability at the department that consumes the largest share of Michigan’s state budget.

“I took an oath to be a good steward of the hard-earned tax dollars of the people of the 29th District and the people of Michigan,” said DeSana. “I cannot in good conscience vote to appropriate billions of dollars to a department plagued by massive amounts of Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse. Until MDHHS cleans up its books and shows the taxpayers real accountability, it has not earned another blank check.”

MDHHS is by far the largest department in state government, with gross appropriations exceeding $30 billion annually. Despite repeated warnings from lawmakers, auditors, and federal regulators, the department has been dogged by:

• Ongoing Medicaid fraud and improper payments draining resources away from the truly needy Michiganders the program is designed to serve.

• More than $200 million funneled to the Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) in the current fiscal year alone, with zero direct benefit to Medicaid recipients. MPHI has been used as a financial pass-through to steer millions to outside consulting firms like McKinsey & Co., including work tied to a failed Medicaid mental health redesign that a judge ruled was in conflict with Michigan law.

• A SNAP error rate so high the state faces the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal penalties — money that will come directly out of taxpayers’ pockets.

• A lack of transparency and cooperation with the House Oversight Committee, which recently required a subpoena to compel the MDHHS director’s testimony.

• Ballooning administrative salaries, even as frontline services for vulnerable residents continue to fall short.

“The Michigan Public Health Institute alone received over $200 million this year, and I challenge anyone to show me a single Medicaid recipient who is better off because of it,” DeSana said. “Speaker Hall has rightly called MPHI a scheme to work around transparency laws. We are shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars into a nonprofit middleman that hands it off to consultants, all while claiming there’s no money left to crack down on fraud. That is an insult to every taxpayer in this state.”

“Every dollar lost to fraud, or diverted to consultants and pass-through nonprofits, is a dollar stolen from a senior who needs care, a child in the foster system, or a family trying to put food on the table,” DeSana continued. “Michiganders are tired of watching their government grow larger and less accountable. They deserve a Department of Health and Human Services that actually serves people, not a bureaucracy that resists oversight at every turn.”

DeSana, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he remains committed to ensuring that critical services reach the Michiganders who genuinely rely on them, but not before the department is forced to demonstrate basic financial discipline.

“I will gladly support a budget that protects the vulnerable, roots out fraud, and respects the taxpayer,” DeSana said. “This isn’t that budget. Michigan families deserve better, and I will keep fighting until they get it.”

Rep. DeSana represents the 29th House District, which includes portions of Monroe and Wayne counties.