Taxpayers Spent Billions Covering the Same Medicaid Patients Twice

Health insurers got double-paid by the Medicaid system for the coverage of hundreds of thousands of patients across the country, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in extra payments.

The insurers, which are paid by state and federal governments to cover low-income Medicaid recipients, collected at least $4.3 billion over three years for patients who were enrolled—and paid for—in other states, a Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicaid data found.