Tag: welfare

How Medicare Became a Slush Fund

Four years ago this month, Washington passed a law and named it, with a straight face, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Bizarrely, their plan to ‘reduce inflation’, which had been caused by excessive government spending, was for the government to spend even more money. It’s genius!

Among its various provisions, part of the legislation authorized the government to negotiate prescription drug prices. Seems like a nice idea in principle… but in practice it’s been a disaster.

The Congressional Budget Office released the results late last month: the Medicare drug provisions that were supposed to generate $129 billion in savings will now add $700 billion to the deficit.

Sometimes it seems like this is the whole idea; given the rampant Medicare fraud that gets uncovered on a daily basis, it’s clear that politicians have an incentive to steer MORE money into the program.

Healthcare is the easiest spending in Washington to justify. Every dollar comes with the same argument: if we don’t spend on healthcare, people will die!

It ends up being so much money— a giant, dark pool of corruption— and a lot of it gets funneled straight back into the political process as campaign contributions. And it’s been going on for ages.

Back in 2002, for example, America’s biggest health-care workers union spent about $800,000 electing Rod Blagojevich governor of Illinois. He later thanked them “for electing me governor.”

Weeks after he took office, Blagojevich signed multiple executive orders that fattened the union’s pockets, like forcing more healthcare workers to join… and automatically deducting union dues from their paychecks. Bad for the unionized workers, but great for the union bosses.

In New York, the Greater New York Hospital Association wrote two checks totaling more than $1 million to the state Democratic Party in August 2018, at then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign’s request.

Three months later the state ordered its first across-the-board Medicaid rate increase since 2008, worth about $140 million a year. Great news for the hospital association.

The cycle never ends— the unions and associations scratch the politicians’ backs, and in turn get their backs scratched. No one can rationally expect those parties to walk away from their mutual benefit.

And this is just the ‘honest’ graft and corruption… it doesn’t take into account the outright fraud.

During COVID, Medicare paid for eight test kits per month, per person, in America. Yet an inspector general later found it paid up to $454 million for nearly 39 million kits over that limit.

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Number of UK Welfare Recipients Hits Record High of 8.4 Million

The number of people receiving direct welfare benefit payments in Britain has soared to an all-time high, the government has disclosed.

According to data published this week by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), 8.4 million people were receiving Universal Credit welfare payments as of May, an increase of around 700,000 from the previous year and 100,000 more than in February.

The DWP said this meant it is now the highest number of people receiving welfare under the Universal Credit scheme since it was introduced in 2013. The number of people on the rolls has increased from 5.5 million since March 2022.

Meanwhile, the proportion of welfare claimants with “no work requirements” rose from 46 per cent last year to 51 per cent in May, or 4.3 million. This was compared to 1.6 million claimants who were required to search for work.

The remaining 3.1 million claimants were employed while receiving the benefits, or 37.7 per cent of the total, down from 41.9 per cent just a year before.

The statistics showed that over 15 per cent of Universal Credit claimants in May were migrants, inclduing 8.9 per cent who were granted access to British welfare as a result of the EU Settlement Scheme following Brexit, which in turn allows for British expats living in EU nations to access their welfare states.

The data release comes as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has unveiled plans to cut welfare spending by £51 billion ($69bn) per year, which would purportedly save every British family £1,700 ($2,305) annually.

Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick said that, if elected, a Reform government would ban all foreigners from receiving welfare benefits, including EU nationals granted access under the Brexit withdrawal agreement. According to Jenrick, simply removing non-British citizens from the scheme would save taxpayers £21 billion ($28.5bn) a year by 2029.

The Reform Party would also look to adopt a similar scheme to that implemented in the Netherlands, in which businesses will be incentivised to encourage their workers to return to the force by requiring firms with more than five employees to purchase a new form of insurance to pay for employees who go on disability.

Jenrick said that the Dutch system upon which it is modelled had cut disability claims by 40 per cent.

Furthermore, Reform would also require that those able to work who have been receiving Universal Credit for over a year must do 20 hours of community service per week or lose their benefits.

“Without these changes, the cost of the welfare system will keep spiralling. We will face a genuine national debt crisis. Those least able to bear it will pay the highest price,” Jenrick warned. “Only Reform will do what it takes to avert this.”

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Minnesota “Outstanding Refugee” Award Recipient Gets Busted for Defrauding Medicaid By OVER $1 MILLION with Help of Individuals Connected to Sex-Trafficking Ring

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, a refugee once celebrated by the State of Minnesota turned out to be less than upstanding.

KMSP reported on Monday that Salman Ahmed Elmi, who was honored as an “outstanding refugee” by the Minnesota Department of Human Services, has been busted for defrauding Medicaid by over $1 million.

By that’s not all. Police say that Elmi’s alleged co-conspirators at Reva Health in Golden Valley have connections to a recent sex trafficking case.

Here’s the background on the case from KMSP:

Elmi is accused of billing Medicaid for more than $1 million in services that were not provided or not eligible. Reva Health provided autism services and adult rehabilitative mental health services.

Elmi and the other co-conspirators are accused of falsifying documents to get Medicaid reimbursements. Prosecutors say other co-conspirators directed staff to pay kickbacks to people to use their information for claims.

The charges state two people involved in the fraud enterprise, former Anoka County prosecutor Andrea Sampson and Frank Devone Reeves, were also involved in a sex trafficking ring that was busted in Hennepin County last week.

Individuals charged in the case face a slew of charges, and on Monday, authorities said there could be many more victims who suffered as a result of that case.

KMSP notes that in addition to being named an “outstanding refugee,” the State of Minnesota also honored Elmi with an Entrepreneurship Award in 2021.

Elmi is the founder and part-owner of the Minneapolis-based startup Tavolo, which received funding from Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary. Tavolo is an AI marketing app for restaurants.

Elmi then used the honor of being a part-owner of the Minneapolis-based startup Tavolo to secure the loan to start Reva Health.

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Reform UK Unveils Plans to Cut Welfare by £50 Billion a Year, Including Ending Benefits to Foreigners

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has vowed to implement the largest welfare reforms in a generation, which it says will save the British taxpayer an estimated £50 billion a year by ensuring that only UK citizens receive benefits and ending the culture of “something for nothing”.

In his first major policy pronouncement since joining the party in January, Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick said that a Reform government would always protect people in genuine need, such as pensioners, children, the vulnerable, and armed forces veterans; it would also seek to “restore fairness” by reserving benefits for Britons only and cutting off those who leech off the state and take “advantage of their fellow citizens”.

“In towns and cities up and down the country, working people tell stories of those in their communities who are pulling a fast one, taking everyone else for fools. The family who enjoy regular holidays, nights out, have new cars on the drive – but who out of choice haven’t seen a day’s work for years. Sometimes decades. This is fundamentally unfair,” Jenrick remarked.

The Reform economics spokesman said that the party’s plan would save the taxpayer £51 billion ($69bn) per year, or £1,700 ($2,305) for every family in the country, and would incentivise 241,000 British nationals to return to work.

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Why The Trump Administration Was Right To End The Medicare Part D Insurer Bailout

he Trump administration’s recent decision to end a temporary Part D subsidy program in 2027 attracted much press attention, and some criticism. The California Democratic Party claimed on  X that “25 million people, mainly seniors, count on Medicare Part D to afford their prescriptions. Donald Trump is putting their health on the line by ending the program.”

This is  absurd—and false. The Trump administration is not  ending the Part D program (established by Congress in 2003) and couldn’t do so even if it wanted to. However, it is ending a temporary and extralegal bailout program that provided billions of dollars in subsidies to insurers. That’s because Democrats made changes to the program that have cost far more than they claimed.

The Bailout, Explained

In summer 2024, the Biden administration announced a unilateral  “premium stabilization demonstration.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) noted the new program would start at the2025 plan year. This was just in time for premium announcements to land in seniors’ mailboxes just prior to the November 2024 election.

The program came into effect largely due to Democrats’ Inflation (Reduction) Act. That law shifted and restructured costs Part D insurers had to pay. It also reduced seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses on prescription drugs. The latter change will, all else equal, result in higher spending, because seniors will consume more and more costly drugs if they  have to pay for fewer or none of their own costs.

The IRA already included one “stabilization” mechanism in a statute running through 2029, intending to minimize any premium increases. But, after seeing preliminary plan bids for 2025, CMS effectively admitted this lone bailout would be insufficient to prevent large spikes in premiums or insurer exits. 

So it conjured a second, unilateral bailout to minimize any potential disruptions. Of course, as I noted at the time, this also amounted to using taxpayer funds to prevent Kamala Harris from suffering a big political controversy in the days leading up to the presidential election.

Unsustainable Costs

As the Washington Post wrote in a recent editorial, these “subsidies have helped keep premiums down but simply by shifting more of the cost on to the federal government,” rather than lowering costs. Indeed, while seniors traditionally paid 25.5 percent  of Part D benefit costs via premiums, this year seniors are paying only about half that amount, or 13 percent.  Taxpayers foot the bill for roughly seven in eight dollars of program spending (87 percent).

The IRA bailouts resulted in $40 billion in additional taxpayer spending in 2025 and 2026, and the costs will add up even more in coming years. I noted recently that this year’s Medicare trustees report increased the long-term cost of the Part D program by roughly one-third, or $5 trillion, compared to the 2025 trustees report.

Justifiable Action

Given these skyrocketing costs, it makes perfect sense to end the Biden administration’s unilateral bailout. Because the IRA’s major changes took effect in January 2025, insurers now have enough actuarial information (i.e., plan claims) to price their products without uncertainty leading to major variations in premiums. 

Eliminating one bailout—remember, the statutory bailout remains in effect through 2029—may increase Part D premiums slightly. But CMS noted that the majority of enrollees will either face no change or a decline in premiums (25 percent), or an increase of under $10 per month (30 percent). Given that taxpayers will still pay a greater share of Part D costs than before the IRA and premiums have fallen by more than one-third in inflation-adjusted terms over the past 15 years, Part D still represents a good value for seniors.

By ending the Biden administration’s unilateral insurer bailout, the Trump administration served as a smart steward of scarce taxpayer dollars, while restoring more of a competitive balance to Part D. False scaremongering by the left aside, the action will help to preserve a Medicare program that faces significant solvency concerns.

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Feeding Our Future Fraudster Gets 10 Years for Brazen $120,000 Juror-Bribery Plot That Triggered Arrest of All Seven Trial Defendants

A ringleader in Minnesota’s massive Feeding Our Future scandal has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to purchase a not-guilty verdict with a staggering $120,000 cash bribe.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud for his role in the brazen plot to bribe a federal juror during his 2024 fraud trial, the Justice Department announced Friday.

Farah had already been sentenced to 28 years in prison for helping steal tens of millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded program intended to feed needy children during the COVID pandemic.

But stealing from hungry children apparently was not enough.

When Farah and six co-defendants went on trial in April 2024, prosecutors said Farah and his associates researched Juror 52 online, obtained her address, surveilled her home, and tracked her movements.

On the night of June 2, 2024, a woman identified by prosecutors as Ladan Mohamed Ali arrived at the juror’s home carrying a white Hallmark gift bag stuffed with rolls of $100, $50, and $20 bills.

Inside was $120,000 in cash.

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Authorities Arrest Fugitive Behind Alleged $547 Million Medicare Fraud

A man on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list, accused of a scheme to defraud Medicare of $547 million, was arrested by authorities on Monday.

The foreign national, Khalid Satary, 54, owned and operated multiple diagnostic testing laboratories in the United States between 2016 and 2019 that billed Medicare for “expensive and medically unnecessary genetic tests,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a July 21 statement.

Satary is accused of conspiring with several patient recruiters and telemarketing services to generate unnecessary cancer genetic test samples that were reimbursed by Medicare at the rate of $10,000 to $20,000 per sample.

To run the operation, Satary allegedly paid millions of dollars in bribes and illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters and doctors.

The defendant was initially indicted in 2019. However, Satary was later released on bond, with the condition that he doesn’t work in the healthcare sector. While on bond, Satary allegedly conspired with labs in Texas to continue submitting fraudulent genetic testing claims to Medicare.

A federal arrest warrant was issued against him in December 2022. However, Satary failed to appear for a court hearing and was believed to have escaped the United States. On July 20 this year, the defendant was arrested in the Middle East with a fake Mexican passport using a fake name. He was then transferred to U.S. authorities.

The Most Wanted Fraudsters list was announced by FBI Director Kash Patel last month. The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud partnered with the FBI to compile the list, according to a June 19 X post from Vice President JD Vance, the task force’s chairman.

The task force was established through a March 16 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which said criminals and other individuals were exploiting various benefit programs intended to provide American citizens with a safety net.

Trump ordered the task force to “coordinate and accelerate a comprehensive national strategy to stop fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.”

One of those on the list, Said Abdullahi Ereg, surrendered to law enforcement on June 10, according to the FBI and federal prosecutors. Ereg is accused of laundering millions of dollars from a program that aimed to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another individual on the list, Herbert Leon Kimble, accused of $1.2 billion Medicare fraud, was arrested on June 11 in the Philippines.

In its latest statement, the DOJ said that Satary has been charged with various fraud-related crimes, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and paying bribes and illegal healthcare kickbacks. He faces a multi-decade prison term if convicted.

“The arrest of Khalid Ahmed Satary and return to the U.S. is the third Most Wanted Fraudster capture from this FBI and our partners in just five weeks—continuing the historic run of success for this new initiative,” Patel said in the statement.

“This is another subject who exploited a program dedicated to helping our most vulnerable and instead stole for himself. Satary has been on the run since 2022, but we got him thanks to great work and coordination from the interagency and our overseas partners.”

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Satary’s legal representative.

According to the FBI’s website, Satary is one among nine individuals currently mentioned on the Most Wanted Fraudsters list.

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CMS Stopped Medicare Payments to California, and This Is How Gavin Newsom Responded

Yesterday, the Trump administration announced it was pausing more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to Minnesota and California because of the suspected rampant fraud and noncompliance in both states. In a press conference with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) head Dr. Oz and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, it was announced that California will not receive $867 million until it can prove Medicaid and Medicare payments are legitimate.

Dr. Oz pointed out that California spending on in-home care went up 24 percent in the last two years, double the country’s average. “California increased spending at twice the rate of the average of the rest of the entire nation,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.” Doubly so when you consider that California has had a net population loss over the last several years.

We all knew Gov. Gavin Newsom would respond to this pausing of payments, and he tried to blame President Trump for it. But it did not go well for Newsom, at all.

“They’re withholding it. But we knew this weeks ago because we’ve been working with them, but they decided again to make it a thing,” Newsom said.

Really? Newsom knew this weeks ago and didn’t say a word about it until today? We don’t buy that for a second.

“We’re trying to be collaborative,” he continued, “understand, it’s ready, fire, aim for them. They’re suggesting something but they haven’t even gotten the response from the state. And now they’re suggesting it very publicly in order to make. This is politics and you know it’s politics. To the extent it’s substantive, bring it on. We want to work with them.”

CMS said it was withholding payments for noncompliance, after requesting information and a plan to address Medicare/Medicaid from California months ago. Has the Newsom administration sent that plan to CMS? Is Newsom really working with the Trump administration he routinely bashes?

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HORROR: Whistleblower says Native Americans were drugged, locked in fake rehab houses so criminals could steal billions from Medicaid – up to 2,000 dead or missing

A massive Medicaid fraud scheme in Arizona has left up to 2,000 Native Americans feared dead or missing, with whistleblowers and attorneys sounding the alarm that the nightmare is still ongoing.

New whistleblower allegations claim vulnerable Native Americans were allegedly lured into white vans with promises of treatment, then plied with fentanyl, methamphetamine, alcohol, and other drugs before being imprisoned inside fake behavioral health homes where operators allegedly billed Medicaid for months of fraudulent “treatment.”

Arizona officials have previously estimated the fraud exceeded $2.5 to $2.8 billion, while the latest whistleblower allegations contend the broader network may have generated up to $12 billion in fraudulent Medicaid claims over time.

Even more chilling, as many as 2,000 Native Americans may be dead or missing as a result of the sprawling scheme, according to NewsNation Now.

Arizona officials knew about the fraud as far back as 2019, according to the lawsuit.

The news outlet reported:

A Navajo advocate who has blown the whistle on fraudulent “sober living” homes in Arizona says she began shining a light on the Medicaid scam targeting Native Americans after her own cousin was kidnapped by operators who plied her relative with drugs and alcohol.

“They told her she would go to Phoenix for the day and (they would) take her home. All throughout the ride they gave her alcohol,” Reva Stewart told “Jesse Weber Live” on Friday.

She said the people who took her cousin demanded personal information from her as they tried to persuade her to stay at a residence. When her cousin refused, Stewart said, they gave her a fentanyl pill and “told her that she would have to find her way home.”

When Stewart learned of her relative’s ordeal, she realized there was a connection between other missing Native Americans and white vans that were observed cruising around tribal communities.

A civil lawsuit against the Arizona government says state officials enabled what essentially was a plot to divert as many as 7,000 Native Americans to fake sober living homes in Phoenix.

Operators allegedly charged billions in Medicaid services that were not provided as handlers plied residents with drugs. An estimated 2,000 victims are still missing, attorneys have said.

During a recent interview, Stewart detailed the ongoing lawsuit and whistleblower testimony, describing conditions that resemble human trafficking more than addiction treatment.

According to whistleblower accounts, recruiters allegedly drove through tribal communities in unmarked white vans looking for vulnerable people struggling with addiction.

Victims were allegedly offered food, shelter, and treatment before being transported to bogus treatment centers.

Once inside, many never received legitimate medical care.

Instead, whistleblowers say patients were deliberately kept addicted because every additional day meant another Medicaid reimbursement.

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“Robin Hood In Reverse”: The Pentagon Is Stealing From the Working Poor to Pay for War and Enrich Contractors

In an era of high prices for fuel, food, and housing, an extra $4,000 could make a lifesaving difference for many families. But instead, that’s what the average household had to shell out for the Pentagon last year.

That’s right: The average US taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. In the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027.

For the growing number of working poor in the United States, that money can mean the difference between making rent or falling behind, or between being able to afford an emergency trip to the doctor or going without care.

Money directed to the Pentagon represents nothing but betrayal for many Americans. A large majority oppose our wars, especially the latest conflict in Iran. And roughly half of the Pentagon’s budget flows to for-profit contractors, fueling the billionaire (and now even trillionaire) class.

Take SpaceX, one of many companies built on government contracts funded by taxpayer dollars. Elon Musk’s company would not exist without US taxpayers. As early Tesla investor Ross Gerber put it, “There would not be (Tesla and SpaceX) if it weren’t for the government.”

Early investments and contracts from the US government helped propel SpaceX to success, while continued awards from the Pentagon provided the stable revenue that made the government one of Musk’s largest customers. The company is now valued at more than $1 trillion. Private investors alone did not make Musk a trillionaire—taxpayers across the United States did.

But Musk isn’t the only person who made himself rich off the backs of American workers.

Lockheed Martin receives over 70% of its revenue from US government contracts. The numbers for Raytheon and General Dynamics are similar. These military contractors simply would not exist without the taxpayers—and a new $1.5 trillion budget would send hundreds of billions of dollars more to people who already have more than most Americans could even conceptualize.

At the same time, while taxpayers are subsidizing the military-industrial complex, the jobs those industries are allegedly providing are in decline, with the war industry creating over 2 million fewer jobs than it did 40 years ago.

Worse still, under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans passed a year ago, the money for these ever-rising Pentagon budgets comes directly from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other programs that help Americans make ends meet.

Under those cuts, millions of Americans—including children—have lost SNAP benefits already. And that’s impacting not just families but the farmers who helped feed them.

SNAP benefits were “guaranteed money in the pockets of farmers,” said Reese Amxy, a policy organizer at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. But 150,000 people in the state have already lost eligibility.

It’s not just Illinois. Arizona has seen the steepest decline, with 50% of recipients—nearly half a million—already losing benefits. Louisiana (21%), Florida (20%), Oklahoma (16%), Virginia (16%), Texas (14%), Wyoming (13%), and Arkansas (12%) round out the rest of the hardest hit states so far.

Yet the person who lost SNAP and the farmer who lost their income alike will be asked to foot the bill for the $1.5 trillion war budget. This is Robin Hood in reverse. Worse still, the weapons those taxes buy are often to use to kill children like ours in Gaza and Iran.

The weapons and tech CEOs that would benefit from the massive war budget, and the politicians bought off by them, seek to keep this cycle going next year at an even grander scale. Americans need to demand their lawmakers say no more Pentagon spending—and invest in the things that actually keep our communities safe instead.

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