PHOENIX — Three years after Arizona launched investigations into Medicaid fraud that preyed on Native Americans and cost taxpayers an estimated $2.8 billion, a Navajo small-business owner says nothing has really changed.
Fraudsters targeted tribal members, promising substance-abuse treatment in sober-living homes in the metro Phoenix area that was never delivered. The schemes billed the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state’s Medicaid agency, through the American Indian Health Plan.
Reva Stewart, the owner of Shush Diné and founder of the nonprofit Turtle Island Women Warriors, said she still sees people trying to recruit tribal members. On Saturday, two women with business cards from a Gilbert group home approached her outside her Phoenix store…