“Build it, and they will come,” the popular expression goes. 

We’d add, fund it — and the hustlers will come, too. 

Hence, the findings of an in-depth investigation by The Gazette’s news staff last month into alleged, rampant overbilling of the state’s Medicaid program by a network of service providers for the homeless in Aurora. The Gazette found the network — referred to as, “The Program” — lured dozens of homeless people with promises of free housing and cash, and reaped tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements.

On Tuesday, as The Gazette reported, the Colorado agency overseeing Medicaid in the state suspended an Aurora home-health agency over its involvement in the network “due to credible allegations of fraud.” Officials with Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing said the department has stopped paying Medicaid claims filed by On Going Home Health Care pending the outcome of its inquiry — launched after The Gazette’s investigation.

The Gazette exposed how On Going, after just three years, had turned itself into a thriving, multimillion-dollar business that centered on services for the homeless. The Gazette’s investigation concluded On Going was part of an elaborate and intertwined confederation of businesses that provided shelter, money and prescriptions to homeless participants in return for billing the federal program for administering the drugs. 

The state sent a suspension letter to On Going’s ownership on Monday, stating, “It is alleged that On Going Home Health Care is billing for services not rendered, reflected in an excessive Medicaid reimbursement increase, from slightly over $1 million in 2022 to over $20 million in 2025. …This action by the State of Colorado in no way precludes any action by the federal government should it decide to pursue other administrative or legal actions.”

According to The Gazette’s latest report, a state spokesperson previously confirmed the FBI is also investigating.

You have to wonder how many more versions of “The Program” are in operation in Colorado — employing similar tactics and running up their Medicaid tab. Meaning, of course, the tab that’s handed to the state and federal taxpayers who jointly foot the bill for Medicaid.

You also have to wonder whether anyone in the state’s Medicaid office was paying attention as millions of dollars went out the door for minimal services. Didn’t it raise questions — before The Gazette’s news staff started asking them?

Perhaps none of it should come as a surprise, though. Medicaid funding has ballooned in Colorado. And those who know how to play the system no doubt could smell the money.

As The Gazette reported this year, Colorado’s Medicaid spending more than doubled in the past 10 years, reaching $16 billion in 2025. And yet, enrollment in the state-federal program has returned to nearly its 2015 level. Why the disparity?

A study by the Common Sense Institute scrutinized 182 health care bills Colorado lawmakers enacted since 2019, costing state taxpayers $858 million annually. The study concluded much of that mushrooming spending stems from legislative policies that expanded coverage in one way or another rather than just health care inflation or an increase in the number of low-income households, for which the program originally was intended.

Among the expansions of coverage by the legislature, as The Gazette’s editorial board noted here in March, was the ironically named “Cover All Coloradans” program — which extends health coverage to illegal immigrants who land on the doorstep of Sanctuary Colorado.

Enacted by ruling Democrats at the Capitol in 2022, that program’s price tag for next year’s state budget is more than six times the original estimate of what lawmakers had expected to spend. Go figure.

Colorado funded it, and they came. Not just those seeking the expanded services, but also those intent on billing for them — whether the services were provided or not.