The counter continues to click upward on the different ways fraud is taking place in this country. The latest entry in the fraud derby comes from California. Imagine that! This is centered on California’s hearing aid program for children, HACCP.
The nanny state that is California decided that the state would fund hearing aids for children who needed them. A noble cause perhaps since hearing aids could be quite expensive. Premium pediatric hearing aids probably ran between $1500 and $6000 just few years back.
How did the state approach this “problem?” Initially the legislature passed SB635 which would have required private insurers to cover the cost of pediatric hearing aids. Obviously the insurers would have adjusted their rate base to cover the increase in costs.
What happened? Newsom vetoed the bill. Why? Did he do it out of some late awakening belief of libertarian ideals? No. Did Newsome do this because he believed the state should not be in the business of mandating performance in the medical economy? Of course not.
Newsom did it so that he could convince lawmakers to funnel the money for such a program into a state-run program. This became the Hearing Aid Coverage for Children Program (HACCP). It is handled by the Department of Health Services in California.
How has that worked out? As of this writing, some $30 million has been allocated. Some $23 million has been spent. How many children have received hearing aids under the auspices of the program? Less than 300. How many are still waiting for help? 20,000.
That comes out to $76,666 per hearing aid. Where is all the money going? This is like a scene out of an audit review of the Pentagon.
The reason Newsom refused the private insurance bill is because it would have accomplished the goal of providing the hearing aids without any dollars being directed to the state payroll. Obviously in Californistan, that is not acceptable. The state program pays the bureaucracy. The hearing aids were just a prop to direct more money into the state payroll.