An Indiana bill aimed at eliminating welfare fraud received final approval by the Senate Wednesday and heads to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk for signature.
State Sen. Chris Garten, R-Charlestown, the bill’s author, said the House made minor technical changes to the bill and asked the Senators to vote in favor of the bill’s final version.
The bill passed along party lines Wednesday on a 39-9 vote. It heads to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk for signature.
“We brought this bill to make sure that every single dollar goes to a Hoosier who is poor and or disabled,” Garten said. “A dollar that goes to somebody outside of one of those groups is stealing from those who truly need it.”
Senate Bill 1 was filed to prevent fraud and contain state spending on welfare programs because “Americans are outraged by the billions of dollars of welfare fraud in our nation — and the Minnesota scandal is Exhibit A,” according to a press release.
Minnesota has been under the spotlight for years for Medicaid fraud, including a massive $300 million pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said it was the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scam and that defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.
In 2022, during President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people were charged. The number of defendants has grown to 78 throughout the ongoing investigation. So far, 57 people have been convicted, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial.
In news interviews and press releases over the summer, then-federal prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated the total loss from all fraud cases could exceed $1 billion. Thompson left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota in January over the way the investigation of the Jan. 7 shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross is being handled, according to the New York Times and Minnesota Star-Tribune.
Garten said the purpose of the bill is to close loopholes within Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as well as complying with federal requirements under President Donald Trump’s budget bill that passed over the summer.
“By tightening these loopholes and aligning our programs with federal law we guarantee that our safety net remains sustainable for the poor, the disabled, our elderly and our Hoosier children who rely on it and need it the most,” Garten previously said.
The 24-page bill will end the state’s participation in the use of expanded categorical eligibility within the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, set gross income standards and countable resources for SNAP eligibility, and establish immigration eligibility requirements for SNAP.
Under the bill, if a SNAP applicant’s immigration status can’t be verified, the applicant’s information will be “immediately referred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for investigation and potential deportation proceedings,” Garten said in a news release.
When the bill was heard in committee, Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob said currently there are no undocumented immigrants receiving benefits.
Undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for SNAP. The only non-citizens who may qualify are lawful permanent residents, or Green card holders; asylum seekers; and other legal residents under temporary protected status, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Senate Bill 1 also establishes the time frame for Medicaid eligibility re-determinations, and requires the Secretary of Family and Social Services to transmit certain information to the federal government to prevent multiple state Medicaid enrollment.
The bill further sets income requirements for Medicaid, and modifies immigration status requirements for Medicaid, including presumptive eligibility, including an increase to 80 hours of work or volunteering per month, and the Healthy Indiana Plan, and requires the office to verify compliance of the requirements and report information to the federal government.
Under HIP, the bill modifies work and exemption requirements and requires the conditions to be met in the three preceding months before an individual applies. The bill directs the Secretary of Family and Social Services to verify compliance with the work requirements on an ongoing basis and at least quarterly.
Senate Bill 1 removes the 12-month eligibility period for HIP and requires semiannual renewal, and it sets an additional copayment for the use of an emergency room for nonemergency services and other services under HIP.
As the state’s Medicaid spending increased to $5 billion in 2025, Garten said the program “has ballooned” as to become unsustainable.
Garten said the bill will help the state address the overpayment or underpayment, known as the error payment rate, which currently sits at 19.5% for Medicaid and 9.5% for SNAP. In total, Garten said the state is looking at $2.25 billion and $2.5 billion in error payments “if we continue down this path.”
State Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, said the state should have oversight over Medicaid and SNAP funds. But, Senate Bill 1 “sounds a lot more like a national agenda than for Hoosier lives.”
“This bill does not read like a careful homegrown solution built around conversations with Indiana families, with Indiana hospitals, with Indiana health providers or community organizations. It’s reading more like a chapter out of a national play book that is circulating across the country,” Yoder said.
Yoder said the bill chooses “a much more brutal approach” to cutting services as it goes beyond federal requirements under Trump’s budget bill.
“We are raising our hand to be the test case for how far this agenda is going to go to cut people off from benefits. We are doing it on the backs of sick Hoosiers, injured Hoosiers, and struggling Hoosiers that we were sent here to serve,” Yoder said.
State Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, said as a former employee of FSSA, he doesn’t want to see the state pay the federal government for having high error payment rates. But, Qaddoura said “the solution” to correcting the error payment rate “is back at the agency that contributed to it.”
“The solution, to me, would be first, let’s look at those who are eligible from a benefits versus harms perspective. Those who have been denied services who are eligible. Those who have been delayed services who are eligible,” Qaddoura said.
State Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, said Senate Bill 1 creates “complex hoops and hurdles and paperwork and administrative bloat in an already complex system.” Families utilizing SNAP deserve the support, she said.
“It is exhausting and hard to be poor, and heaven forbid that a mom would want to buy her kid a cupcake or a candy at the checkout counter,” Hunley said. “It just seems silly to me that in a state where we really work hard to be small government that government would be inside our grocery carts now.”
State Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, said he filed a bill to try to remove the asset calculation for SNAP benefits after he learned that error payment rates are high because the asset determination for SNAP is complicated.
Walker said other states have removed the asset calculation and found the error rates have decreased, which means that more federal dollars go toward the SNAP program recipients.
“There are ways to skin this cat in a way that keeps Indiana compliant,” Walker said.
akukulka@post-trib.com
