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The Goodman Institute Health Blog

Where the Covid Relief Dollars Went

Posted on August 17, 2022August 17, 2022 by John C. Goodman

As the coronavirus spread across the United States in early 2020, businesses shuttered and people were forced out of work. 

Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York Times


 

In the midst of the pandemic, the government gave unemployment benefits to the incarcerated, the imaginary and the dead. It sent money to “farms” that turned out to be front yards. It paid people who were on the government’s “Do Not Pay List.” It gave loans to 342 people who said their name was “N/A.”

The federal government provided about $5 trillion in relief money in three separate legislative packages. The result: “one of the largest frauds in American history.”

In one instance, 29 states paid unemployment benefits to the same person. In another, a Postal Service employee got an $82,900 loan for a business called “U.S. Postal Services.” Another individual got 10 loans for 10 nonexistent bathroom-renovation businesses, using the email address of a burrito shop.

New York Times

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For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.

During this five-year hiatus no one else has come forward to claim the space. So, my colleagues and I have decided to restart the blog in connection with the Goodman Institute. We invite you and others to use this forum to share your views.

John C. Goodman,

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