'One in Five or Six' Medicaid Dollars Isn't Fraud. It's Mostly Missing Paperwork.

The claim that 'one out of every $5 or $6' in Medicaid payments is improper, implying fraud justifying cuts, is mostly false. CMS puts the improper-payment rate at about 5 percent ($31.1 billion), not 16 to 20 percent, and about 79 percent of that is insufficient documentation, which CMS and GAO say is not a measure of fraud. Grace rates it Mostly False.