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These are the welfare stories that make me mad, NYS is to blame for making it too easy.
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/crime/lottery-winner-to-face-charges-in-court
ALBION, N.Y. (WIVB) - Many people have been fired up over the case of a lotto winner who is accused of collecting welfare benefits. Tuesday, the accused scammer returns to court.
Anthony Palermo is guaranteed $1 million in lottery winnings. But he's accused of illegally collecting benefits paid with your tax dollars, Tuesday he'll be back in Albion town court.
Fourteen years ago, Anthony Palermo won New York State?s ?Win for Life? scratch-off game. The Albion man has been collecting $1,000 every week and, up to now, has collected almost $750,000.
For the last seven months, officials say he?s been collecting state aide meant for the poor.
Orleans County Chief Administrative officer Chuck Nesbitt said, ?In Orleans County we take this very seriously and if you want to try and cheat the system this is not the place to do it.?
Last week, 51-year-old Palermo was arrested for welfare fraud.
Nesbitt says the state should have stricter rules in place to prevent things like this from happening.
Nesbitt said, ?Most recently the state has rolled back some of the requirements in terms of medicaid eligibility. In fact applicants don't even have to appear in person now. They can fill out an application online and begin receiving medicaid.?
Officials say Palermo collected about $4,000 in Medicaid, HEAP and Emergency Cash assistance benefits.
Re: These are the welfare stories that make me mad, NYS is to blame for making it too easy.
Just imagine how many people that aren't getting caught. There needs to be stricter rules IMO.
I don't know, 5?
Do you really think that there are lots of lottery winners collecting welfare benefits?
I'm not necessarily opposed to stricter regulations, but I would want those regulations to be enacted after a comprehensive audit to determine how widespread fraud is and how it's being perpetrated. To best craft the new regulations, you would need a study regarding the best ways to eliminate fraud without harming honest people who need help. The problem with the kneejerk "make it stricter!" rallying cry is that it often leads to poor policy decisions that don't achieve the objectives and have serious unintended negative consequences. Making policy on assumptions about fraud without actual data is not a good idea.
Has he received his payout yet? I wonder if there was a gap in time between winning and receiving his money.
There ARE strict rules, hence him going to court.
This was my reaction. I can't wrap my head around the idea of doing nothing more than filling out a form on the interwebz and proceeding to collect Medicaid. Is there really no requirement other than one's averment of need?
if it's a win for life then he probably is. IIRC the article said he's been collecting for several years.
as for the rest, i am just not in the mood today for pointless panty-wadding. states are cutting back staffs drastically. i didn't have to show up to collect UE either. there aren't even that many people manning the phones anymore.
i'd love to know what the OP suggests as effective "stricter rules" for preventing fraud. LOVE it.
Nope, not a lot of lottery winners.
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It's like the argument that we should be drug testing everyone. The facts and figures show that the majority of the people using the system are NOT defrauding the government. Not only that, making it "stricter" and having more rules and regulations to have staff check up on ultimately costs the government more money.
Well, you know, if public employees weren't so greedy and didn't want benefits along with their $38,000/year salaries and glamorous surroundings in human services buildings, maybe states could afford to hire more of them! HTH.
Hang on. $1k a week = $52k a year, minus taxes (anyone know what these are?). If he's not working and this is his sole income, that's really not a lot of money. He's not rolling around in his millions like Scrooge McDuck.
(Sorry, I'm really slow this morning. Bad kiddo night, plus dropping my coffee this morning is making me a zombie.)
ETA: Cause I do math good.
Clearly. Because there are 52 weeks in a year.
::head desk:: NEVERMIND! Carry on without me.
are lottery winnings taxed like casino wins? if so, i think that's in the 40's.
I don't have kids, and I drank my coffee, and I didn't catch this until it was pointed out. Damn mornings...
There are some pretty decent studies of welfare fraud out there in my field. What most find is that the two most common ways of committing fraud are: 1., living with someone (usually a boyfriend but sometimes a parent, sibling, friend, or other relative) and not reporting their income (if they're lucky enough to have any) and 2., not reporting if your child's father gives you $20 to buy new clothes for your daughter or in-kind items (like a pack of diapers or a can of formula) for your son.
It seems like it's more trouble (and far more money) than it's worth to track down Sarah and Tony and make them pay the government back the $6.00 that they owe.
I admit, I'm raising an eyebrow about it taking 14 years to figure out this guy was scamming the system, but...they caught him and will demand that he pay the money back (I assume?). So we'll make him pay for his crime with his $1,000 weekly money for life - that can be garnished, right?
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DAccording to the story, it didn't take 14 years to figure out this guy was scamming the system. It took 7 months.
Fourteen years ago, Anthony Palermo won New York State?s ?Win for Life? scratch-off game. The Albion man has been collecting $1,000 every week and, up to now, has collected almost $750,000.
For the last seven months, officials say he?s been collecting state aide meant for the poor.
...
Officials say Palermo collected about $4,000 in Medicaid, HEAP and Emergency Cash assistance benefits.
So he's collected about $4,000 in benefits over 7 months and has been caught. It's bad that anyone scams the system, but it seems like the fraud detection program is working. Hell, it's working better than any oversight of Enron ever worked, right?
He's been scamming the system for 7 months, right? It doesn't surprise me it would take that long to notice a weird pattern.
From the article:
Officials say Palermo collected about $4,000 in Medicaid, HEAP and Emergency Cash assistance benefits.
That's it? Is that in the last 14 years? Or in the last year? Regardless, that seems like a pretty sh!tty deal.
OK, seriously people, read the article. It's not that long. 7 months. $4,000 in benefits. He's been receiving lottery winnings for the last 14 years.
Clearly I need to stop skimming articles.
Still though, garnish the man's winnings until he's paid up and then call it a day. I don't think we need to spend even more resources that NYS is better off spending for anything else in order to prevent welfare fraud because of this one guy.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D:oD More coffee for everyone!
This is where I'm at. As much as I think welfare needs work it needs to be done in a way that makes sense based on hard data about what fraud is taking place, and how prevelant it is so that any changes made actually fix the problem rather than just make people feel better.
Plus I'd rather have a handful of people commiting fraud than kids go without because of a kneejerk reaction.
Okay, so withhold a month's (or more with taxes?) worth of his winnings to pay that back. Done and done.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DA truly excellent idea!
F you people. F you all.
groomy is insisting I cut back on my coffee consumption because we think I have moderate IBS, which is being made worse by my shittastic work environment.
I've only had 2 cups today, and one was not a full sized cup. I AM CRANKY.