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Times-Dispatch reports on how the State of Virginia managed to get $259 million from the federal government under the Medicaid law. Instead of using the funding to cover Medicaid costs, the state put the money into the general fund budget "to offset such things as the elimination of the local car tax." The articles describe how the state used county governments to obtain the funding. The quarter-billion money transfer occurred shortly before the federal government discovered the loophole in the law, which allowed state governments to siphon Medicaid funding. The federal government eventually ordered Virginia to repay the millions. Although the case was concealed behind terms like "intergovernmental transfers" and "upper payment limits," many officials came to call it a scam.