In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by economist and fraud researcher Professor Jetson Luis-Leder to examine the systemic issues underlying government program fraud. Jetson and Patrick discuss healthcare fraud cases, including hospice eligibility manipulation and ambulance transport schemes, and other fraud practices against unemployment and the PPP program. The discussion reveals how institutional constraints, technological limitations, and policy design choices create opportunities for both beneficial and harmful rule violations. They also analyze the ROI of fraud prevention measures, the effectiveness of whistleblower incentives, and how bureaucratic systems can be redesigned to prevent abuse. – Full transcript available here: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/defrauding-government-jetson-leder-luis – Sponsors: Check | WorkOS Check is the leading payroll infrastructure provider and pioneer of embedded payroll. Check makes it easy for any SaaS platform to build a payroll business, and already powers 60+ popular platforms. Head to checkhq.com/complex and tell them patio11 sent you. Building an enterprise-ready SaaS app? WorkOS has got you covered with easy-to-integrate APIs for SAML, SCIM, and more. Start now at https://bit.ly/WorkOS-Turpentine-Network – Links: Jetson's website: https://sites.bu.edu/jetson/ Paper: Ambulance Taxis by Jetson Leder-Luis Ambulance Taxis: The Impact of Regulation and Litigation on Health Care Fraud Paper: Did FinTech Lenders Facilitate PPP Fraud by John M Griffin, Samuel Kruger, Prateek Mahajan https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3906395Paper: Is Fraud Contagious by John M Griffin https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4599654Paper: Unemployment Insurance Fraud in the Debit Card Market by Jetson Leder-Luis with Umang Khetan, Yunrong Zhou and Jialan Wang  https://www.nber.org/papers/w32527 Book: Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka https://www.amazon.com/Recoding-America-Government-Failing-Digital-ebook/dp/B0B8644ZGYPodcast: Jennifer Pahlka on Ezra Kleinhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/2VPErCIG1pbcnYFBojrKcG Podcast: Dave Guarino on Odd Lots https://open.spotify.com/episode/43HI3NuxZGsl13U365xZxa Bits About Money https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/Related Complex Systems episodes: Dan Davies and Dave Guarino's episodes– Twitter:@patio11 @jetson_econ –Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:04) Overview of Medicare/Medicaid (02:41) Estimated $50-100B fraud losses (03:31) Taxonomy of healthcare fraud (08:04) Hospice fraud; potentially saved money (16:33) A $10 billion asterisk: ambulances for dialysis patients (21:30) Sponsors: Work OS | Check (24:45) Complexities of fraud detection and prevention (39:02) Pandemic fraud  (41:34) Findings on PPP loans fraud (48:19) Supply chain of fraud (52:06) Policy and enforcement challenges (01:08:32) Whistleblower programs  (01:14:54) Final thoughts – Complex Systems is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Turpentine also has a social network for top founders and execs: https://www.turpentinenetwork.com/