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Sentencing Guidelines Commission asks legislature to add intermediate penalty tier in medical-assistance-fraud bill
Summary
On April 9, 2026 the Sentencing Guidelines Commission voted to ask the legislature to add an intermediate monetary tier between $0 and $100,000 in a pending medical-assistance-fraud bill, citing concerns that the bill's proposed thresholds would collapse multiple current tiers and complicate the commission's severity rankings.
On April 9, 2026 the Sentencing Guidelines Commission voted to recommend that the legislature establish an intermediate penalty tier between $0 and $100,000 if it adopts House File 2354 (third engrossment). The motion, made by Commissioner Eid and seconded by Commissioner Castro, passed with 10 votes in favor and one recorded abstention (Commissioner Keefe).
The commission's staff presented a legislative update and flagged a House-file proposal that would recodify medical-assistance fraud with new monetary thresholds and higher statutory maximums. Staff member Nate told commissioners the bill creates a basic penalty band that effectively groups all conduct under $100,000 into the same tier and then establishes higher tiers at $100,000-to-$1,000,000 and at $1,000,000 and above. Nate said the change "collapses a lot of different levels of misconduct," and warned that merging low- and mid-value conduct into a single band would complicate how the commission assigns severity levels.
Commissioners voiced practical and fairness concerns. Several members said collapsing the old $5,000 and $35,000 bands into a single $0–$100,000 band would sweep widely varying misconduct into one ranking and make it harder for the commission to preserve proportionality between low-value cases and large-fraud schemes. Commissioner Castro put the concern succinctly during debate: the panel needs a way to retain lower-level rankings for cases with little or no fiscal loss so they are not forced into a higher severity-level classification.
Staff described the bill as proposing a 10-year basic penalty and a 20-year higher-tier penalty for the new medical-assistance-fraud crime and noted that those statutory maximums, combined with the broader monetary bands, present a "ranking problem" for the commission. Nate said he planned to meet with bill proponents (the attorney general's Medicaid fraud unit) to discuss options and sought commission direction; commissioners voted to authorize an official recommendation to the legislature for an intermediate tier so staff could submit a timely letter and testify if needed.
The commission's action does not change current sentencing guidelines; it is a request to the legislature to consider amending the bill to preserve a mid-range monetary tier. The commission's next steps, as discussed at the meeting, include staff follow-up with the AG's Medicaid fraud unit and preparation of draft guidance or a legislative letter describing the ranking implications of particular threshold choices.
The motion to recommend an intermediate penalty tier was recorded in the meeting minutes as passed. The commission then moved on to a separate, multi-item presentation on the comprehensive-ranking review.
