Two adult daycare operators funneled $25,000 to Governor Kathy Hochul's campaign coffers. Meanwhile, their connected businesses raked in tens of millions from Medicaid, and reporters who showed up at their facilities found them seemingly empty of patients.
Baoli Zhang and Jiemin Shang, who run adult daycare centers in Queens, are now under intense scrutiny after an investigation according to reports revealed the jaw-dropping financial pipeline connecting their operations to the governor's war chest. Hochul pulled in $55,000 total from social adult daycare center operators during her 2022 race. The nine daycare businesses behind those donations collectively charged Medicaid roughly $49 million that same year.
Let's talk about Zhang, age 69. This guy personally wrote a $10,000 check to Hochul and kicked in another $5,000 through his company, Bao Kang Adult Day Care. His network of businesses has filed north of $32 million in Medicaid claims since 2018. Bao Kang alone exploded from around $1.5 million in annual Medicaid billing in 2018 to a whopping $7.22 million by 2024. He also launched the Asian American Adult Daycare Association in 2023 as an industry lobbying group.
Shang's operation follows a similar trajectory. Her Livingwell Day Care donated $5,000 to Hochul in 2022 while billing Medicaid about $5.8 million. Another Shang business, Finest Adult Day Care, chipped in an additional $5,000. Livingwell's Medicaid revenue skyrocketed from $114,000 in 2018 to approximately $8.05 million last year. Shang also holds the title of secretary-general in Zhang's daycare association.
Here's where it gets really fishy. When reporters visited Bao Kang and Livingwell last week, both locations appeared completely vacant. No patients in sight. Yet the Medicaid billing keeps flowing.
Ownership records are a tangled mess too. Zhang identified himself as Bao Kang's owner in campaign finance filings, but government Medicaid databases reportedly list entirely different people as its owners. The same discrepancy pops up with Empire SADC, another center Zhang claimed to run.
Zhang also controls Confucius Social Daycare Center in Manhattan's Chinatown, which billed Medicaid roughly $15.7 million over six years. His company AA Plus Management charged taxpayers another $2.65 million as a Medicaid provider.
The broader picture is staggering. New York's Department of Health has referred 387 daycare centers for investigation since 2021. About one third of those cases got escalated to the attorney general for potential prosecution. Previous federal raids uncovered centers billing for seniors who never received any services, with some operations even returning portions of government funds as kickbacks.
An industry insider painted a damning picture of what happened after the pandemic. Centers were financially dying during COVID, someone rescued them, and now they are pulling in record revenue. Another source claimed politicians cozy up to these daycares because they can mobilize elderly voters during primaries.
Zhang has also donated $7,800 to Representative Grace Meng and $4,950 to state Senator John Liu. Both attended a 2022 event at one of Zhang's centers where he ironically lectured seniors about greed and overusing public benefits.
Hochul's office insists donations had zero impact on government decisions and pointed to reform efforts that produced billions in taxpayer savings. "Any facility caught violating the law will face consequences," a spokesperson declared.
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