Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke says a massive Medicaid fraud operation has quietly taken root in her state for more than a decade — and she warns the public is only now beginning to see the scope of the problem.
According to Fox News, Cooke, a conservative commentator who spoke with the outlet, said the unfolding scandal in Minnesota should be viewed as a preview, not an outlier. “Minnesota was just the tip of the spear,” she said.
According to Cooke, providers within Ohio’s Somali community approached her privately, claiming they were being pressured to participate in what she called a “massive” and long-running scheme targeting the state’s Medicaid home healthcare program.
The system allows individuals to receive payments — reportedly as high as $91,000 per year per person — for caring for an elderly family member. Cooke said the loophole has been exploited by scammers who fabricate medical needs and rely on friendly doctors to approve the claims.
“They’re just rubberstamping a lot of these,” she explained. “And then that same individual, a week later, that’s supposed to be bedridden, is all over social media… out dancing at a party.”
Cooke emphasized that the wrongdoing is not representative of the Somali community as a whole. “The problem today is not the community; it’s actually the criminals within the Somalian community that have exploited Ohio’s Medicaid program,” she said.
She said the people who came forward did so at enormous risk, warning her that exposure could put their lives in danger. “They told me they would be stoned to death,” Cooke said.
The attorney argued that weak oversight inside Ohio’s Medicaid system has allowed fraud to flourish. She described a process vulnerable to manipulation, with no consistent independent assessments and few meaningful spot checks.
“Often an individual is coached to lie to a doctor,” she said. Providers told her that nearly every case — “99% of the time” — involved someone who did not actually qualify for the benefit.
Cooke believes the emerging Minnesota case is only a preview of what federal investigators will eventually uncover in Ohio. “What we’re seeing in Minneapolis is just a snippet of what’s happening in Ohio,” she said.
She stressed that the waiver system was created “with compassion” to help families genuinely in need, but now “it’s being looted.”
Her recommendation is blunt: “Every state, in addition to Ohio, should be asking for audits of their Medicaid system and their programs.”
And until those audits happen, Cooke warned, taxpayers will continue to pay the price. “Ohio taxpayers are hurting, the American people are hurting, and we don’t have enough tax dollars.”
