Tag: welfare

RFK Jr. Blows the Whistle on $400M Autism Fraud Scheme in Minnesota

Acting HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience for the first time since taking his new role, and he did not shy away from detailing the fraud he says he uncovered after finally stepping into a position of power.

With Medicaid and Medicare alone, Kennedy said, “We lose just on Medicaid and Medicare, $100 billion a year. And it’s all just this, really, ya know, shocking, blatant fraud.”

As HHS Secretary, Kennedy described an industrialized scheme operating out of Florida, where P.O. boxes were set up for companies claiming to sell durable medical equipment like knee braces and wheelchairs.

But there’s one small problem: “They don’t have any knee braces or wheelchairs.”

However, they do have patient identification numbers.

Those ID numbers are used to bill the government for equipment that never ships. Kennedy said many of these schemes are operating out of countries like Cuba or Russia.

He then pointed to another staggering example: Los Angeles has more hospice care providers than the entire rest of the country COMBINED.

How is that possible? That’s because “it’s all fraudulent,” Kennedy said.

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Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno seeks to ban welfare recipients from sending money abroad

U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to request unanimous consent for his bill — one that would levy large fines against public assistance recipients in America who transmit money to foreign countries.

“If you are on any type of government aid, you are restricted from sending money overseas,” Moreno said during a speech today on the Senate floor. “We want to help Americans in need. But if they are in need, why do they have money to send oversees?

The “Stopping Transfers of Public Funds Abroad Act” would require anyone applying for federal benefits to sign a written declaration, under penalty of perjury, promising not to conduct any remittance transfers while receiving assistance.

Under the proposed law, any individual found to have sent money overseas while on those rolls would face a $100,000 fine.

“If an individual has enough cash to send money overseas, they have no business taking welfare benefits from hardworking Americans,” Moreno said in a statement. “The abuse ends now.”

The legislation targets programs defined under federal social security regulations, which generally include Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and other needs-based assistance.

While the bill aims to curb fraud, the policy would most directly impact American citizens and “qualified aliens”—legal immigrants who have cleared the mandatory five-year waiting period for federal benefits—who still maintain financial ties to family members in their home nations.

The bill defines “remittance transfers” as electronic transfers of funds to a person or business in a foreign country, a common practice for immigrant families supporting relatives abroad.

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JD Vance, Dr. Oz make dramatic move withholding $259.5M Minnesota Medicaid funds in first battle in the ‘war on fraud’

Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that $259.5 million in Medicaid funds for Minnesota won’t be reimbursed due to fraud concerns — giving Democratic Gov. Tim Walz 60 days to submit a “corrective action plan” or face further withholdings.

Vance was joined by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to make the announcement, which was first reported by The Post — one day after President Trump announced a Vance-led “war on fraud” in his State of the Union address.

The men also announced a national pause on firms that can seek subsidies through Medicare for durable medical equipment like canes and walkers.

“We are going to start very aggressively in the administration cracking down on the people and the organizations that are defrauding Americans,” Vance pledged after being delegated the role by Trump.

Oz said “Gov. [Tim] Walz has 60 days — 60 days, sir — to respond to our letter” if he wants repayment, which Oz said will require the state to “propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem.”

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Dearborn Heights Pharmacist Pleads in $3.2 Million Medicare, Medicaid Fraud Scheme

Pharmacist Mohammad Hamdan of Dearborn Heights pleaded guilty Tuesday to involvement in a fraudulent scheme that cost Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan more than $3 million in losses.

Hamdan, 44, admitted that from February 2019 through June 2024, he used his two pharmacies to submit false and fraudulent claims for prescriptions even though the prescribed drugs were medically unnecessary, were not actually dispensed, or were not ordered by a physician, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In many instances, the pharmacies — Prime Pharmacy at 1948 Ford Ave. in Wyandotte and Corner Med Pharmacy at 25302 W. Warren Street in Dearborn Heights — did not have the drugs on hand but billed insurers as if he dispensed them.

In all, Hamdan submitted false and fraudulent claims totaling over $3.2 million.

Hamdan faces a possible maximum sentence of not more than 10 years in prison.

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Radical Socialists AOC and Zohran Mamdani Team Up to Promote FREE DAYCARE for Illegal Aliens in All-Spanish Video — ‘America Last’ Agenda on Full Display!

Outrageous! Just when you thought the radical left couldn’t spit in the face of hard-working American citizens any harder, they find a new way to prioritize lawbreakers over taxpayers.

Radical socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have teamed up to push free daycare for illegal aliens, using American taxpayer dollars.

The duo released a video entirely in Spanish, with English subtitles, shamelessly instructing illegal immigrants on how to enroll their kids in NYC’s 3-K and Pre-K programs, regardless of immigration status.

The video, posted by the NYC Mayor’s Office, features Mamdani admitting his Spanish “isn’t the best” before handing off to AOC to deliver the sales pitch.

With American and NYC flags in the background, as if to mock our sovereignty, they emphasize that “any parent in New York City, regardless of occupation, income, or immigration status, is eligible to register their children.”

Mamdani goes on to highlight how families have been ‘suffering deep financial ruin’ from childcare costs up to $26,000 per year, but conveniently forgets that these programs are bankrolled by citizens who follow the law.

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Trump Administration Issues Rule to Block Illegal Aliens from Taxpayer-Funded Housing

President Donald Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued a rule to prevent illegal aliens from gaining access to taxpayer-funded housing, like Section 8, meant for low-income Americans.

On Thursday, HUD issued its rule to require proof of American citizenship or eligible immigration status for such housing aid:

Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, as amended (“Section 214”), prohibits the Secretary of HUD from making financial assistance available to persons other than United States citizens or certain categories of eligible noncitizens in HUD’s public and specified assisted housing programs. This proposed rule would revise HUD’s Section 214 implementing regulations to require the verification of U.S. citizenship or the eligible immigration status of all applicants and recipients of assistance under a covered program regardless of age. The proposed rule would also make prorated assistance a temporary condition pending verification of eligible status of all family members, where permitted by statute, as opposed to under HUD’s current regulations where prorated assistance could continue indefinitely. These amendments would bring HUD’s regulations into greater alignment with the wording and purpose of Section 214 and align with the current Administration’s priorities and regulatory reform efforts. [Emphasis added]

HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the rule is meant to close a long-held loophole that has allowed illegal aliens to secure public housing assistance. About two percent of illegal alien-headed households are on housing assistance, as well as six percent of legal immigrant-headed households.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the days of illegal aliens, ineligibles, and fraudsters gaming the system and riding the coattails of American taxpayers are over,” Turner told Politico. “We have zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes.”

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NYC Socialist Mayor Eyes Activist Who Called CPS ‘Genocide for Black People’ to Lead Child Welfare Agency

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is considering Angela Burton, a 65-year-old activist known for her criticism of Child Protective Services (CPS), to lead the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).

Burton has described CPS as a form of “slow extractive genocide for black people in America” in a 2023 X post and likened it to “child slavery” in another post from July 2023.

“Leave Black people alone. Your numbers and methods are treasure. Racist garbage in, racist garbage out. We don’t need CPS. CPS is Slow extractive Genocide for Black people in America. We know what you’re up to,” Burton wrote.

Currently, Burton serves on Children’s Rights’ New York Mandated Reporting Working Group, which seeks to narrow mandated reporting laws to reduce what it calls over-surveillance and family separations, particularly affecting Black, Latino, and low-income families.

Burton has also posted on X calling CPS a “grave and imminent threat” to children and families, accusing CPS employees of racism, and advocating for defunding police and the abolition of the “foster care industrial complex.”

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Democrats Claim GOP ‘Gutted’ Medicaid. Federal Data Shows The Opposite

etween now and the November midterm elections, Democrats and their allies will spend countless hours and energy claiming Republicans “cut” Medicaid in last year’s reconciliation legislation. Don’t you believe it. 

A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report demonstrates how Republicans’ reforms in that law merely attempted to slow an unsustainable Medicaid program following a Biden-era spending explosion. But for good or for ill, the program’s spending continues to grow inexorably higher, notwithstanding those reforms.

Scaling Back Biden’s Spending Binge

Last January, I wrote about that Biden-era Medicaid explosion. From June 2024 to January 2025, CBO increased its estimates of Medicaid spending by $817 billion, or 12 percent, and cited five factors driving such rapid spending growth. Democrat policy priorities, most of them imposed by the Biden administration unilaterally, were at the root of those factors: administrative actions to expand eligibility and prevent states from cracking down on fraud, a mandate on states to cover anti-obesity medications, greater incentives for states to expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults, and policy changes allowing states to bilk the federal government out of additional Medicaid matching funds.

The budget reconciliation bill Republicans passed last year undid many of those changes. It repealed the additional incentives Congress passed in 2021 for states to embrace Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, blocked several costly Biden-era mandates, cracked down on state abuses of the Medicaid financing system, and instituted work requirements for able-bodied adults. But it made no explicit changes to the benefits provided to the vulnerable populations — seniors, individuals with disabilities, and children — for which Medicaid was originally designed.

The Other Half of the Story

Last week, CBO released its annual report on the budget and economic outlook, its first fiscal update since the reconciliation measure last July. It estimated that last year’s bill would reduce Medicaid spending by $1.184 trillion, a fact Democrats will dutifully repeat ad infinitum between now and Nov. 3.

But the welfare-industrial complex won’t bother to mention several other important Medicaid facts to voters. First, even after taking into account the changes in the reconciliation bill, CBO now estimates Medicaid will spend more under Donald Trump than it estimated during the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency. You read that right: From 2026 through 2034, CBO now estimates that Medicaid will spend $7.124 trillion, versus an estimate of $6.862 trillion in June 2024.

In part, that dynamic occurs because, notwithstanding the changes Republicans enacted into law last year, Medicaid spending continues to climb ever higher. Even as it reduced Medicaid spending by nearly $1.2 trillion to reflect legislative changes from the reconciliation bill, CBO cited “technical changes” to increase spending by $700 billion over the coming decade. While noting lower-than-expected enrollment growth in 2025, “[c]osts per enrollee grew by 16 percent in 2025 — significantly more than CBO had anticipated,” and a trend the budget gnomes expect to continue.

Contra claims about Medicaid “cuts,” program spending will continue to grow every single year over the coming decade. From 2026 through 2036, CBO believes Medicaid spending will grow by a total of 39 percent, due to both growth from inflation and 18 percent growth in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) spending per beneficiary.

Democrats will cite the estimated 14 percent reduction in Medicaid beneficiaries as evidence of the likely harm caused by the budget reconciliation measure. But even here, CBO notes that the number of individuals “losing” coverage “includes 1.5 million enrollees whose records indicated enrollment in more than one state and who would retain Medicaid eligibility in their current state of residence.” This “cut” reflects not individuals being harmed but “enrollees” who never should have had duplicate coverage to begin with.

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79th Suspect in Massive Minnesota Fraud Scheme ARRESTED After Attempting to Flee to UK — Center Received MILLIONS in Taxpayer Funds Under Walz Administration

Another taxpayer-funded grift artist has been stopped in her tracks.

The owner of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, who pocketed a staggering $3.67 million in child care funds in 2025 alone, has been arrested before she could escape to the UK.

Fahima Egeh Mahamud now becomes the 79th defendant charged in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud network, the same racket that stole hundreds of millions meant for kids’ meals and actual care.

In 2025 alone, the center reportedly hauled in a staggering $3.67 million in Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) funding.

This comes after her site was already flagged for receiving over $850,000 from the feeding scheme between 2020 and 2021, while spending only a fraction of that on actual food for children.

More from KARE 11:

According to court documents, Mahamud operated a food site, Future Leaders Early Learning Center, under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future between 2018 and 2021. Records show that Mahamud incorporated Future Leaders as a legal entity in March 2015 and participated in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under a different sponsorship. However, in September 2018, documents show that Mahamud signed a sponsor transfer request to be under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.

Future Leaders received funds in 2018 and 2019, but the claims were mostly “modest,” according to a special agent with the FBI, and rarely exceeded $10,000, but in December 2020, those funds dramatically increased. An affidavit in support of a criminal complaint says Future Leaders claimed to serve more than 1,000 children per day between January 2021 and June 2021. By February 2021, prosecutors say Future Leaders was claiming to serve nearly 60,000 meals to children monthly.

There was also email communication between Aimee Bock, the so-called “mastermind” behind the Feeding Our Future fraud, and another staff member at Feeding Our Future about Mahamud’s request to “increase from 500 to 1000.”

The special agent said that investigators found evidence that indicates many invoices and receipts are “inflated or fraudulent.” Some of the invoices were from a vendor of a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

The affidavit goes on to say that from December 2020 through July 2021, Future Leaders received more than $850,000 and only spent about $125,000 on food. Forensic analysis indicates that Future Leaders made payments to individuals, including $174,159 to Mahamud and $726,566 for real property purchases and $359,020 to other companies associated with Mahamud.

Court documents indicate that on February 10, 2026, Mahamud notified the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families that she was abruptly closing her center.

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Former NY Sales Director Sentenced to Prison in $70M Medicare Brain Scan Scheme

A former New York-based sales director for the Northeast region of a mobile medical diagnostics company was sentenced on Feb. 13, 2026, in federal court in Boston for conspiring to offer and pay kickbacks to doctors in exchange for ordering medically unnecessary brain scans.

The scheme resulted in fraudulent bills of about $70.6 million to Medicare. Medicare paid approximately $27.2 million to the TCD company for the fraudulent claims.

James Rausch, 57, of Point Jefferson Station, N.Y., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to eight months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release. The defendant was also ordered to pay $17.5 million in restitution, forfeiture in the amount of $408,437 and a $20,000 fine.

 In June 2025, Rausch pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback statute.

From March 2015 through at least September 2020, Rausch conspired with others, including two managers for a mobile medical diagnostics company that performed transcranial doppler (TCD) scans, to enter into kickback agreements with various doctors. 

TCD scans are brain scans that measure blood flow in parts of the brain. 

Rausch and his co-conspirators agreed to offer and pay doctors kickbacks, some in cash and others by check, based on the number of TCD ultrasounds the doctors ordered. The co-conspirators created purported rental and administrative service agreements, which on paper made it appear as if doctors were compensated for the TCD company’s use of space and administrative resources of the ordering doctor’s practice based on fair market value and not based on the volume or value of referrals. These were sham agreements that hid the true nature of the arrangement of paying per test.  

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