Finding The Fraud

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. They seem to be taking their work seriously and are doing a good job. The orange jumpsuits are coming. On Thursday, Fox News reported that the former leader of a Minnesota nonprofit was reportedly sentenced Thursday to nearly 42 years in prison for orchestrating a $250 million pandemic relief fraud scheme.

The Daily Caller reported:

The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud — quarterbacked by Vance — hit the ground running this year. After uncovering massive fraud in Minnesota, the task force and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) paused over $250 million in Medicaid funding to the state. “People are billing the government millions, tens of million, billions of dollars, saying they are providing a service, but there’s no actual confirmation,” Vance explained.

In just three months, the team has “uncovered tens of billions of dollars in defrauded taxpayer money, prosecuted dozens of fraudsters, and stopped billions in suspicious payments,” said Vance. The VP then added: “we’re just getting started.” He wasn’t kidding

Just last week, Dr. Mehmet Oz — the administrator for CMS — announced that his agency had identified nearly 800 suspected fraudulent providers of hospice and home health care services in the Los Angeles, California, area alone, resulting in over $1.4 billion of potentially fraudulent payments. When CMS cut off all 800 providers, fewer than 20 even attempted to contest the move, Oz reported. “Unbelievable. So at least 780 are not even trying to claim that they’re not fraudulent,” Vance exclaimed. “It’s just completely insane.”

The article concludes:

And Vance has the weapons to execute the mission. The Trump administration just launched a brand new National Fraud Enforcement Division at DOJ in April, led by Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald. In an unusual arrangement, demonstrating how aggressively Trump and Vance want to crack down on the fraudsters, McDonald reports directly to the vice president via the anti-fraud task force.

The division has been hard at work, hitting a $50 million Medicare fraud scheme in Los Angeles and executing 22 search warrants against fraudulent day care centers in Minnesota, including the infamous “Quality Learing Center.”

In just a few short months, the task force has unearthed massive amounts of fraud by utilizing a robust and effective whole-of-government approach.

Vice President Vance’s task force has proven it’s a serious effort which is producing real results. If they can keep pace over the coming months and years, the wins are only going to pile up. All Americans should be proud that this administration is finally looking out for their tax dollars.

I am thoroughly impressed by Vice-President Vance. I don’t know if it’s his Marine training that aids him in getting things done or something else, but this is a wonderful change from Kamala Harris as the Border Czar.

Where The Money Went

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about how Medicaid money was spent.

The article reports:

Five states and Washington, D.C., funneled more than $1.35 billion in federal taxpayer Medicaid funding to illegals, according to a preliminary audit of the program completed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehemet Oz posted the results of the preliminary audit on social media showing California, D.C., Illinois, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon spent millions each on illegals, with California spending the bulk, topping over $1.3 billion alone.

That money, according to Oz, was spent “just in the last few months.”

The left constantly claims this does not, or even cannot, happen because it is against federal law to use programs like Medicaid — something meant for Americans — for illegals, but that small sample of states shows that states are defrauding the American people out of their own programs to the tune of billions of dollars.

That claim is even more spurious considering the Democrats are only days away from breaking the all-time longest government shutdown record because they care more about funding health care for illegals than citizens of their own country.

“Some want to deny that illegal immigrants are receiving Medicaid. Others insist it’s illegal for Medicaid to cover illegal immigrants. And others accurately point out that hospitals can provide emergency services to illegal immigrants under the program,” Oz said, noting CMS is intending to have the money returned to them.

The article concludes:

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations seemed to have alleviated some of the pressure from certain emergency rooms notorious for being abused by illegal aliens, as The Federalist reported, but Dr. Jared Ross, an emergency room doctor, said that illegals being kicked off Medicaid from the OBBB could have the unintended consequence of turning them toward emergency rooms instead of going to general practitioners using insurance.

Reforms in the OBBB are necessary to stop American taxpayers and communities from having to deal with the burden illegal aliens put on their health programs and institutions, but another major avenue of reform will be altering EMTALA to limit illegal immigrants’ capacity to abuse the system.

American taxpayers cannot afford to continue to support people who are here illegally.