Written by Nathaniel Mannor
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a massive spike in government benefits to those who unfortunately lost their jobs and even their homes as Democratic lawmakers shut down the economy to protect their power. Unfortunately, the pandemic also increased scammers gaming the system to steal unemployment benefits using death-row inmate names and even Senator Dianne Feinstein’s name. But since that well has dried up, the con artists need another source of income.
Criminals have now moved on to impersonating doctors to gain disability aid from the Employment Development Department (EDD). As such, EDD froze 345,000 claims filed by 27,000 doctors. The department investigated these doctors’ identities by asking them to use ID.me, a computer program that sorts out honest healthcare providers from fraudsters.
There are unintended consequences to this, such as patients whose doctors don’t use email or those whose claims have been suspended along with the fake ones. Assemblymember Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, responded to the turmoil saying, “Here we are once again when this big bureaucracy that can’t tell the difference between the honest and the corrupt.” He also mentioned that many of his affected constituents “are at their wits ends because they are simply running out of money. They are at the end of their financial rope.” In total, fraudsters stole an estimated $20 billion in unemployment money since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in March 2020.
He’s right. The real villains here aren’t the conmen but the rather big bureaucracy that put the people of California in this mess. California’s habit of giving away money for free has allowed people to remain on welfare instead of turning to their community for support. Yet state officials act surprised when someone easily bypasses the system.
Suppose the Democratic majority can learn anything from this disaster. In that case, we should encourage people to rely on their family, friends, neighbors, church, and their local community before going to the government to solve their problems. Because when you give the government more power over your life, you never get it back.
Photo Cred: Matthew Nuttle
