Tag: wlefare

Vance demands all 50 states crack down on Medicaid fraud

Vice President JD Vance has warned that the government may withhold federal Medicaid funds from states that fail to crack down on Medicaid fraud. This comes as the Trump administration launches a crackdown on suspected fraud in state programs and defers $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from California.

The initiative came as people across the U.S. have expressed concern about increasing health costs and barriers to access, some of which come from the federal government’s own acts.

“We’re announcing that the federal government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the state of California. And the simple reason is because the state of California has not taken fraud very seriously. We want California to get serious about this fraud,” said Vance at news conference.

The vice president was joined by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and other officials, who all outlined new requirements for Medicaid programs in all 50 states, including showing aggressive prosecution of fraud or risk losing government funding for their anti-fraud units.

Dr. Oz referenced data from the White House Fraud Task Force on rapid growth in California’s hospice and home health sectors and described a “stunning level of suspected Medicaid and hospice fraud” uncovered in California, such as a 1,500% increase in hospice claims.

“In February, we had the largest anti-fraud announcement from CMS. Today’s effort is larger. It’s much larger, and there’s a reason for that. Half of the fraud, we believe, in the federal government, could be coming out of health care services,” said Oz.

Vance also singled out Hawaii and New York as potential targets for Medicaid fraud as they have not taken the fraud issue seriously.

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Not Just Minnesota: Reporter Uncovers Stunning Fraud Red Flags in America’s Second-Biggest Somali Enclave

There’s no doubt that the fraud revelations that rocked Minnesota in late 2025, and into 2026, marked a mind-blowing scandal.

What do you mean Minnesota’s leadership somehow missed blatant — and costly — fraud happening right under their noses? That’s preposterous!

And yet, if you are a particularly disillusioned cynic, your response to the entire scandal might’ve been, “It’s a deep blue state run by Democrats. What did you expect?”

Well, Ohio is decidedly not a deep blue state — let’s call it nominally red or purple, for now — and yet the state and its Republican governor apparently missed some massive red flags that strongly suggested fraud in the Buckeye State.

The Daily Wire did a deep dive investigation into troves of data released by the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, showing what companies were billing to Medicaid.

This is how the outlet’s Luke Rosiak put his findings:

“I’ve spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter.”

According to The Daily Wire, Ohio spent $1 billion on “home health care” in 2024, which was the last year data was available. This alone was cause for concern for the investigators, as that effectively meant any oversight of these healthcare workers effectively ended when the actual job began in the home.

Rosiak described it as an “infinite number of small black boxes inside a black box,” as far as accountability and oversight went.

Despite that lack of oversight, home health care workers still had to provide something that they could bill for, and the data dump revealed that one such billable service was “companionship and conversation.”

Yes, taxpayer dollars are being spent for family members to… speak to one another. Inside of their home. Or, at least, that’s the worst-case interpretation of it, which is perfectly fair given the lack of details otherwise provided.

Rosiak also noted that, despite the money being spent on very important health services like “conversation,” Columbus still wasn’t getting much healthier — in body or diversity of business practices.

“As people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families, northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid,” Rosiak wrote. “And Columbus, a city with the second largest Somali population in the country, has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.”

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Almost 150,000 children were living in jobless households this Christmas as number of homes without an income hits 11-year high

Almost 150,000 more children spent Christmas in a home without an income this year after the number of jobless households hit an 11-year high under Labour, official figures show.

There were 1.52 million youngsters living in a house where not a single adult family member is employed as of September, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

Last year, 1.37 million children were in a workless household in October to December 2024, meaning an extra 146,000 children spent Christmas in a home without an income this year.

The figures also reveal that the number of children in workless households is at its highest level for 11 years. The last time there were more children in a house where no adult family member is employed was in October to December 2014, when the total was 1.54 million.

The Conservatives blamed the rise on Labour’s £25billion raid on employer National Insurance contributions and minimum wage hikes, which have driven up the cost of taking on workers.

They claim that with firms scaling back and jobs disappearing, more families are being pushed out of the workforce entirely, leaving children to bear the consequences.

Helen Whately, Tory spokesman on work and pensions, said: ‘Too many parents are being priced out of work by Labour’s Jobs Tax and Unemployment Rights Bill.

‘It’s a tough Christmas for people who have been made redundant and can’t find new work, and for those still in jobs seeing their taxes go up to pay for more benefits. Labour is offering more and more handouts to people on benefits, making welfare the rational choice rather than work.

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DOGE Has Found $14 Billion in Medicaid Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, Dr. Mehmet Oz Says

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, said his agency and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have identified at least $14 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse.

“There’s about $14 billion we’ve identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid,” Oz told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

As an example, Oz said: “You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government.”

There are other areas, he said, that constitute abuse of the federal health care system. He said some people who are eligible to get a job or seek education are receiving Medicaid. Oz echoed statements made by GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.)., who in recent days said that able-bodied individuals and illegal immigrants have received Medicaid benefits.

Oz urged that Medicaid be cleaned up so that it can provide services to individuals such as people with disabilities and others, suggesting that Republicans keep a work requirement to be eligible for the program.

“I think there’s a moral hazard if we don’t, because you’ve got people who are not working who could work, who should work, and it’s better for them and better for the country if they do,” he said, referring to Republicans’ having added work requirements to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed in the House of Representatives on May 22.

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Brooke Rollins: SNAP Program Filled with ‘Fraud and Abuse and Corruption’

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is filled with “fraud and abuse and corruption” and needs major reform, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said during a policy event with Breitbart News on Tuesday.

Rollins offered a stunning figure, noting that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends $400 million per day across 16 nutrition programs.

“Again, let me repeat that $400 million of our taxpayer money is spent every day across our nutrition programs, just at USDA,” she said. “So when the president ran and spoke to the American people about rightsizing government and realigning and making sure that every taxpayer dollar is spent to its best and highest and most effective use, that I’m not sure there is a program — there are others equally equal to it — but I’m not sure that there is a program that perhaps needs more reform than the SNAP program, which is the food stamp program.”

Rollins reemphasized that USDA is spending $400 million per day, and that requires officials to look “very closely” at the program.

At best, she said, “it’s ripe with fraud and abuse and corruption.” She noted that Secret Service recently conducted stings and arrested individuals engaged in SNAP fraud. She said there was “tens of millions of dollars” that were being stolen, noting that money has been given to illegal aliens wrongly in the system as well.

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