Inside NYC Chinatown's adult daycare centers— where taxpayers spend $400M for lunches and ping pong
Nearly 400 Medicaid-funded adult day cares have have popped up in storefronts, apartments, and basements across the five boroughs.
At the Golden Town Adult Social Day Care in Chinatown on a recent Tuesday afternoon, a handful of elderly Chinese immigrants in their winter jackets picked at plates of lo mein and rice.
Lunch is supplied by a local restaurant, where prices for a typical dish range around $7 to $12.
But this is not a soup kitchen or lunch counter. It’s a medical facility, and taxpayers spend $85 a plate at Golden Town, thanks to a Medicaid money pit that invites savvy business owners to milk the system.
“They just come in for lunch,” an employee of Golden Town told The Post when asked what other services were provided by the center.
They added transportation is offered for Golden Town’s 100 clients, but most prefer to walk, especially “if the weather is nice.”
Incredibly, the whole thing is completely legal, with the private owners of these centers taking advantage of a system which has very little oversight and costs New York taxpayers a $400 million tab annually, my investigation reveals.