Tag: welfare

Dr Oz accuses Democrats of ‘gaslighting’ Americans over $1B in Medicaid payments to illegal immigrants

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced Thursday that an internal review uncovered more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to illegal immigrants across several states, a problem he says the Trump administration is now moving to correct.

“The Democrats have been gaslighting us on this issue of Medicaid funds going to illegal immigrants for quite a while,” Oz said on “Fox & Friends.” 

Healthcare for illegal immigrants has been a major issue prolonging the latest government shutdown, which is now entering its third week. Republicans accuse Democrats of allowing federal health dollars to go to illegal immigrants while standing in the way of efforts to cut government waste.

Oz said his agency’s investigation into the topic is “just getting started” and the latest figure covers only a few states. 

Keep reading

Grand Jury reportedly meeting this week in Hope Florida investigation

Florida’s Hope Florida program, once celebrated by the governor and First Lady as a compassionate outreach effort, is now under a grand jury’s microscope. Prosecutors in the capital are reportedly meeting this week to decide whether criminal charges are warranted in a growing scandal that’s shaken the state’s political establishment.

The proceedings are happening behind closed doors inside Leon County’s 2nd Judicial Circuit courthouse, where prosecutors are taking evidence in the Hope Florida investigation.

At issue: whether anyone broke the law after $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement moved through the Hope Florida Foundation to other nonprofits, and then to a political committee once controlled by now–Attorney General James Uthmeier. That committee later helped defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana.

State Attorney Jack Campbell, who is overseeing the process, declined to provide details.

“No, there’s no comment on that at all. Everything that the grand jury does is, in fact, confidential,” Campbell said when asked about the case last week.

Legal experts say the secrecy is standard procedure. Mario Gallucci of the Gallucci Law Firm is a former New York assistant district attorney and was a principal attorney in its major felony unit. He said these proceedings can take weeks to complete.

Keep reading

Migrants Taking £10 Billion Per Year in Direct Welfare Benefits in Britain: Report

The British taxpayer is funding over £10 billion in direct welfare subsidies to migrants, who now account for one in six pounds sterling spent on universal credit, a report has found.

According to internal government data seen by London’s Daily Telegraph, £10.1 billion of the annual £61.2 billion spent on the universal credit scheme for those out of work, on low incomes, or those struggling with living costs was paid to foreigners living in Britain last year.

The figures, released under Freedom of Information Act requests, mean that one sixth of all direct welfare spending was given to foreigners or 16.5 per cent of the Universal Credit budget.

According to the broadsheet, this represented a significant increase over previous years, with £6.3 billion being spent on foreigners in 2022 and £7.9 billion in 2023.

The actual cost of the mass migration agenda is not even fully demonstrated by the figures; however, given that the data set does not include migrants who have been awarded citizenship, or indeed second-generation migrants.

The Universal Credit scheme also represents only one avenue through which foreigners can benefit from state subsidies, with the money spent on education and healthcare for migrants being counted separately.

Keep reading

President Trump Announces Major Deal with Drugmaker AstraZeneca, Including $50 BILLION Investment

President Trump on Friday announced another deal with UK-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to lower drug costs for Americans on Medicaid. 

The drug manufacturer will now sell prescription drugs to patients at Most Favored Nations prices through TrumpRx.gov.

This comes after the President struck a deal with Pfizer to also provide Americans with heavily discounted prescription drugs at most-favored-nation prices.

Trump made the announcement on AstraZeneca in the Oval Office on Friday, where he touted his efforts to lower drug costs during his first term and announced Most Favored Nations pricing from “the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the United Kingdom.”

“I had it going very well in my first term, but we were interrupted by rigged elections, so I was unable to carry it forward,” the President noted.

Trump also highlighted AstraZeneca’s plans to build a new plant in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they broke ground on Thursday, investing $50 billion in U.S. manufactuting, he said. “It’s going to have 3,600 jobs just to begin with, and that’s going to be a fantastic plant,” Trump said.

Trump delivered remarks on the new deal and AstraZeneca’s manufacturing plans in America for nearly seven minutes before taking questions from the press. AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, CMS Administrator, Mehmet Oz, FDA commissioner Marty McCary, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin joined the President and delivered remarks.

Keep reading

Report: Illegal Immigrants Collected $7 BILLION in Medicaid Payments

Washington is once again at a standstill, but this shutdown is not about budget math or routine partisan squabbles.

At its core, the fight centers on one question that should be obvious: Should Medicaid, a safety-net program designed for low-income Americans, be stretched to cover illegal immigrants? 

Democrats have answered yes, Republicans no—and the standoff has left taxpayers caught in the middle.

The fight began with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year. One of its most important provisions closed a Medicaid loophole that allowed states to pass the cost of illegal immigrant health care onto federal taxpayers. 

That reform required states to fund those services themselves instead of exporting the bill nationwide. 

Democrats are now demanding that this provision be undone, and their refusal to compromise has kept the shutdown going.

California illustrates how large the abuse has become. 

In 2023, the state set aside $3.9 billion in Medicaid funds for medical services for illegal immigrants. 

Because the federal government typically reimburses around 70% of Medicaid spending, taxpayers across the country ended up footing most of that bill. 

To squeeze even more money from Washington, California raised provider taxes on hospitals and nursing homes, then cycled the revenue back through inflated Medicaid payments. 

On paper, the state appeared to spend billions more. In reality, it was a budgetary trick designed to capture federal dollars and shift costs to the rest of the country.

New York followed the same playbook, allocating $2.4 billion in 2024 to extend full Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants under 65. 

Illinois expanded coverage to noncitizens over 42. 

The strategy is consistent: inflate Medicaid spending, collect federal reimbursements, and redirect money to people who are not legally eligible. 

Keep reading

Dems Want Medicaid For Millions Of Biden-Era Migrants But Use Sneaky Wordplay To Pretend They Don’t

The federal government shut down on Wednesday after Democrats refused to vote on a clean continuing resolution to keep the government funded for the next seven weeks. When Republicans pointed out that Democrats were unwilling to vote to fund the government without restoring health care eligibility for illegal aliens, the media and other Democrats jumped into action, “fact-checking” Republicans and claiming that wasn’t true.

These “fact checks” rely on the ludicrous claim that foreign citizens who were dumped into the United States by the millions by the Biden administration via blanket parole grants are not really “illegal” aliens.

Democrats refused to fund the government without a funding proposal that would, in part, rescind Subtitle B in Title VII of the One Big Beautiful Bill. That section had narrowed the eligibility requirements for government health care benefits (like Medicaid), restricting eligibility for certain foreign nationals, such as the 2.8 million otherwise inadmissible aliens who received blanket parole into the United States from the Biden administration.

But rather than acknowledge that Democrats’ proposal would extend federal health care to parolees, leftist mouthpieces insist that those millions of parolees don’t count as “illegal aliens” and therefore that no illegal aliens are getting Medicaid benefits.

That’s what Neera Tanden is doing when she insists the Affordable Care Act “bans care for illegal aliens.”

Or Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, who claimed: “Undocumented immigrants aren’t even *allowed* to access Medicare, Medicaid or ACA credits.”

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said in an X post: “‘Health care for illegal aliens’ is the new ‘immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield.’ The Republican playbook is simple: make up a baseless lie, repeat it every chance you get, hope and pray that everyone blames Democrats for the crises you created.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said: “To be clear, undocumented immigrants aren’t even allowed to enroll in federally funded health coverage.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNBC it is an “outright lie” and that “federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to provide medical coverage to undocumented individuals.”

New York Rep. Jerry Nadler said on X that “undocumented immigrants are not eligible for the ACA. Period.”

Keep reading

Fraudsters stole about $320 million in SNAP benefits over 2-year period: GAO

A new Government Accountability Office report calls for the Agriculture Department to take stronger steps to assess how states are implementing security measures to prevent theft of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on electronic benefit transfer cards.

The report released Thursday found states use a range of tools recommended by USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service to prevent theft but many of the measures require SNAP recipients to take individual action, “which can affect how widely they are used.”

According to the GAO, SNAP benefits can be stolen by such methods as card skimming, card cloning, phishing and spoofing attacks, which involve tricking recipients into revealing personal information. 

Fraudsters also pretend to be legitimate SNAP retailers to steal information and have been known to use bots to identify valid PIN combinations for accounts.

State SNAP agencies “replaced over $320 million in stolen benefits with federal funds for nearly 679,000 households in 52 states” during the period of October 2022 to December 2024, the report said.

“Theft of benefits could leave victims without means to purchase food, particularly since benefits stolen on or after December 21, 2024, are not eligible for replacement with federal funds,” the GAO said.

However, the GAO noted that available data, in fact, understates the scale of SNAP theft, given that states are not required to report every occurrence.

Keep reading

Trump’s HHS Overhauls Welfare Program with Focus on Accountability

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Administration for Children and Families, selected Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Virginia to participate in the redesigned Temporary Assistance for Needy Families pilot.

This pilot will test innovative approaches to promote employment, reduce government dependency, and strengthen family outcomes. 

Authorized under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the six-year pilot will replace the Work Participation Rate and instead measure state success using new, outcome-based metrics that aim to deliver real results for families and taxpayers. 

For example, states will now be held accountable for improving employment outcomes, supporting earnings growth, and reducing reliance on cash assistance, Medicaid, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

“The Trump Administration is returning to the original promise of welfare reform—ensuring our programs are laser-focused on helping families achieve lasting self-sufficiency while delivering results for taxpayers,” said ACF Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison. “This pilot marks the beginning of a new era where states are empowered to test new strategies, achieve real outcomes, and build an evidence base for innovations that drive upward mobility in America.”

The federal agency posted on social media:

“ACF is launching the redesigned TANF pilot with newly selected states: AZ, IA, NE, OH, & VA. The 6-year pilot will test new ways to: Promote work Strengthen family stability Reduce dependency.”

Keep reading

SNAP Fraud Has Doubled Since Last Year. Here’s Why.

Criminals are looting public safety net programs using digital tools, according to a new report released by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. 

The report analyzed reported fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Integrated Eligibility Systems. Fraud in the SNAP program has doubled, the report said. 

The 54-page report reveals that the cost and volume of SNAP fraud have risen sharply over the past year, driven by the accelerated shift to digital channels, increasingly sophisticated Electronic Benefits Transfer theft schemes, and complex multi-program eligibility systems. 

The findings of this year’s report are especially significant given the administrative and programmatic changes introduced to SNAP agencies across the country by House Resolution 1. 

According to the 2025 study, the average monthly rate of fraudulent SNAP applications and post-issuance cases has doubled since 2024. For every $1 in SNAP benefits lost to fraud, agencies now incur $4.14 in total costs, up from $3.93 a year ago.

“SNAP is a lifeline for millions of families, and these findings highlight how increasingly sophisticated criminals are targeting this critical benefit program,” said Amanda D’ Amico, Senior Director at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Digital channels and expanded eligibility systems improve access but also expand the attack surface. Agencies that leverage real-time data, identity verification, and digital authentication solutions to detect fraud and increase cross-program collaboration can turn the tide against fraud while ensuring timely benefits for those in need.”

Keep reading

Zohran Mamdani Wants to Spend $100 Million in NYC Tax Dollars on Increased Services for Illegal Aliens

Zohran Mamdani, the communist running for mayor of New York City, wants to spend $100 million in tax dollars on increased services, specifically legal services, for illegal aliens living in the city.

It’s so stunning to see this man admit that he wants to take the hard earned dollars of the citizens of New York City and give the money to non-citizens who are in the country illegally, and yet is leading in the polls. Has everyone in New York City gone insane?

His candidacy is being driven by far left progressive hipsters in the city, but are they really the majority?

Townhall reported:

New York City’s sanctuary policies don’t go far enough for Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” he wants to spend even more taxpayer money to help illegal immigrants if he’s elected…

“I would also commit to increasing the staffing of our law department by 200 to bring us back to pre-COVID levels, and to ensure that when we look at this city we are using every tool at our disposal to keep New Yorkers together, to keep families together,” the democratic socialist continued.

Mamdani emphasized the urgency of his plan, claiming “400,000 of our residents are right now in urgent risk of deportation.”

“The city knows that when it provides legal assistance to those same New Yorkers, their chances of going home increase 11-fold, and yet it has only assisted fewer than 200 of those New Yorkers,” he added. “That’s why also a cornerstone of our campaign is a commitment to increase funding for those very legal defense services by more than $100 million so we can ensure we’re taking every step we can to keep New Yorkers safe, to keep New Yorkers together, and to show the world that they are welcome in this city.”

Keep reading