Private Medicaid Plans Receive Billions In Tax Dollars, With Little Oversight

Health insurance wasn't available through his job, so Jose Nuñez turned to Medicaid, the nation's public insurance program that assists 75 million low-income Americans.

Like most people on Medicaid, the Los Angeles trucker was assigned to a private insurance company that coordinated his medical visits and treatment in exchange for receiving a set fee per month — an arrangement known as managed care.

But in 2016, when Nuñez's retina became damaged from diabetes, the country's largest Medicaid insurer — Centene — let him down, he says. After months of denials, delays and erroneous referrals, he is claiming in a lawsuit, the 62-year-old was left nearly blind in one eye. As a result, he lost his driver's license and his livelihood.