Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog 4/16/2026
Every day brings new revelations about how widespread welfare state fraud runs rampant in blue states like Minnesota and California. Is Texas immune from fraud? Not entirely.
Amid a national debate over waste, fraud, and abuse in federal health and welfare programs, Texas lawmakers heard testimony this week on potential problems in state oversight of taxpayer-funded programs designed to assist the poor.
“We are dealing today with a healthcare epidemic, but not from a disease or virus. We are examining a nationwide epidemic of fraud in healthcare,” said state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), chair of the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
Kolkhorst presided over a nine-hour hearing in Austin on Wednesday, prompted by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s interim charges and President Donald Trump’s call for greater oversight in state-managed programs.
Although the state’s 8 percent “error” rate in administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is lower than many other states, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Texas must reduce that rate to 6 percent or less or else face significant penalties. The state must also reduce the Medicaid eligibility error rate to 3 percent or less.
“New federal laws are now going to make it imperative for Texas to reform some of its eligibility programs and improve its compliance with regulations for Medicaid and especially SNAP,” said Kolkhorst. “For the first time in history, states must now fund part of the SNAP program, and improper payments and errors in that system will cost us hundreds of millions of dollars.”
More:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=71184
