Pennsylvania Would Fund Colleges by Sniffing Out Medicaid Fraud

Pennsylvania legislators are pinning their effort to avert the steepest higher-education cuts in U.S. history on savings from reducing Medicaid waste and fraud. If the state can’t find enough, more than 160,000 needy residents may go without health care.

Republican Governor Tom Corbett had proposed halving funding for state universities and cutting primary education. Instead, the majority Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to divert $470 million from the Public Welfare Department, saying that rooting out cheating and errors will create savings.