In 2010, Texas spent more on Medicaid orthodontic services than the nation’s nine other most populous states combined. Now, state investigators are on a mission to reclaim hundreds of millions of misspent Medicaid dollars. So, how’d the state get in this mess in the first place? 

Todd Wiseman was the senior editor for video and multimedia at The Texas Tribune, where he worked from 2010 to 2023. Todd previously worked at the Austin School of Film and Synthetic Pictures and interned...