– The Washington Times
Vice President J.D. Vance is the new “Fraud Czar,” President Trump announced Friday, and will focus on California and other blue states where Mr. Trump said criminals have engaged in unprecedented theft of taxpayer money.
Mr. Trump gave Mr. Vance the new title one day after the FBI announced a major crackdown on fraudulent hospice care companies in Los Angeles, which they accused of bilking $50 million from Medicare.
The arrests were coordinated with a new task force, headed by Mr. Vance, that Mr. Trump established earlier this month to tackle fraud in government-funded services.
Mr. Trump said Friday that fraud involving taxpayer funds is so extensive that if it is eliminated, “we would literally be able to balance our American budget.”
The Justice Department on Thursday announced the arrest of eight people, including three nurses, a chiropractor and a psychologist, in an alleged scheme that involved making claims for tens of millions of dollars in hospice expenditure for people who were not terminally ill.
One of the individuals charged in the case is a licensed vocational nurse who Justice Department officials say operated a hospice care company that submitted more than $9 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
Lolita Beronilla Minerd, 65, listed numerous patients with the same addresses who lived far from the hospice facility. One couple was paid cash in an envelope each month for signing up, even though neither had a terminal illness, officials said.
Most patients die in hospice care and the facilities typically discharge fewer than 18% of patients. But Ms. Minerd’s company discharged about 85% of its patients.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said he believes half of the approximately 1,800 hospices in the Los Angeles area are fraudulent.
Some of the hospices targeted in the federal raid had survival rates of nearly 100%, Dr. Oz said.
“Certainly, if you have a survival rate of over 50% for a population that’s supposed to have passed in six months, you’ve got a problem,” he said.
Federal officials and lawmakers are investigating other blue states, including Minnesota, where, according to congressional Republicans, lax oversight by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has cost the state or put at risk $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and up to $9 billion in Medicaid-related money due to fraudulent claims.
The Justice Department has so far charged 98 individuals in Minnesota in connection with fraudulent claims, among them 85 people from the Somali community. The Justice Department issued 1,750 subpoenas and executed 130 search warrants related to fraud cases in Minnesota.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and prospective 2028 presidential candidate, attacked the Trump administration after the announcement of the arrests in the hospice scam.
Mr. Newsom said he already took steps to eliminate fraud in his state by revoking 280 hospice licenses in the past two years and banning new hospice licenses in 2021. State officials have filed more than 100 criminal cases related to hospice fraud, Mr. Newsom said, and stopped $125 billion in identity-theft related fraud alone.
Mr. Newsom said the Trump administration is “home to the biggest fraudsters on Earth,” and is wrongly blaming California for problems with federal programs.
“Glad to see the Feds finally taking seriously the fraud in the programs they themselves manage … only 15 months after Trump took office,” Mr. Newsom said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
