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DOJ uncovers $14.6 billion healthcare fraud that Biden missed

&NewLine;<p>You have been robbed&excl;&excl;&excl; Billions of dollars of your taxpayers’ money is gone&period; And it turns out that the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;myth” of healthcare fraud—so often dismissed by Democrats as a right-wing talking point—just got a &dollar;14&period;6 billion reality check&period; In what the Department of Justice &lpar;DOJ&rpar; is calling the largest healthcare fraud takedown in U&period;S&period; history&comma; more than 324 individuals&comma; including 96 licensed medical professionals&comma; were charged across 50 federal districts for their roles in a sprawling web of deceit&comma; theft&comma; and exploitation of the American healthcare system&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>But let us not rush to celebrate just yet&period; While the Trump DOJ is deservedly taking bows&comma; the real question is&colon; Where was the Biden administration while this fraud metastasized into a multi-billion-dollar cancer&quest;&nbsp&semi; The numbers are staggering&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<ul class&equals;"wp-block-list">&NewLine;<li>&dollar;14&period;6 billion in intended fraudulent losses&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<li>&dollar;2&period;9 billion in actual losses&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<li>&dollar;245 million in seized assets&comma; including cash&comma; crypto&comma; and luxury cars&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<li>&dollar;4 billion in fraudulent claims stopped by CMS&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<li>205 providers had their billing privileges suspended or revoked&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The schemes ranged from telemedicine scams and fake addiction treatment centers to transnational criminal rings laundering Medicare dollars through shell companies and cryptocurrency&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>One particularly grotesque case involved a Pakistani national who allegedly conspired with 41 addiction clinics in Arizona to bill Medicaid for services never rendered &&num;8211&semi; many of which targeted Native American communities and the homeless&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Another gem&excl; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Operation Gold Rush&comma;” a &dollar;10&period;6 billion scheme involving Russian and Estonian nationals who used stolen identities of over a million Americans to submit fake Medicare claims for urinary catheters&period; &lpar;That should piss you off&period;&rpar;&nbsp&semi; Nothing says &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;healthcare equity” like international crime syndicates billing Medicare for medical equipment no one ordered&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Attorney General Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel declared it a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;decisive moment” in the fight against healthcare fraud&period; For sure&comma; it’s a big bust&comma; but let’s not forget that this fraud didn’t happen overnight&period; It festered for years under the noses of the Medicare and Medicaid bureaucrats – and while the Biden administration was busy assuring the American people that fraud in government-run healthcare was &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;rare” and &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;overblown&period;”  Apparently&comma; &dollar;14&period;6 billion is just a rounding error when you’re spending trillions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This isn’t just a failure of enforcement—it’s a failure of ideology&period; For years&comma; Democrats have insisted that expanding government control over healthcare would not create a problem of waste&comma; fraud&comma; and abuse&period; They’ve mocked concerns about Medicare fraud as partisan fearmongering&period; And yet&comma; here we are&comma; with the largest fraud bust in American history&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Where was the oversight&quest; Where were the audits&quest; Where was the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;most transparent administration in history” when foreign nationals were using AI-generated voice recordings to fake Medicare consent calls&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>To their credit&comma; the DOJ is now launching a Health Care Fraud Data Fusion Center to use AI and cloud computing to detect fraud&period; Why now and not three years ago&comma; when these schemes were already in full swing&quest; Why was the Trump administration able to again &lpar;referring to securing the border&rpar; do in months what the Biden administration was unable to do in years&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Let us be clear&comma; every dollar stolen is a dollar not spent on real care for real patients – or maybe a dollar that Uncle Sam did not have to take from the taxpayers&period; Every fake claim undermines the integrity of programs like Medicare and Medicaid&period; And every time the government fails to detect fraud&comma; it gives ammunition to those who argue that centralized healthcare is a bureaucratic disaster exposed to waste&comma; fraud and abuse&period;&nbsp&semi; And honestly&comma; can you blame them&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This takedown should be a moment of reckoning—not just for the criminals&comma; but for the policymakers and bureaucrats who had allowed this fraud to develop and rage on through negligence&comma; denial&comma; and ideological blindness&period; The Biden administration cannot have it both ways&period; You certainly cannot keep telling the American people that fraud is &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;not a serious issue” when &dollar;14&period;6 billion walked out the door under your watch&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Healthcare fraud is not a fiction&period;  That should be kept in mind when those same Democrats tell us today that waste&comma; fraud and abuse are not a problem in Medicaid&period; The next time someone tells you that healthcare fraud is a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;myth&comma;” point them to the 324 defendants now facing federal charges &&num;8230&semi; or the one million stolen identities used to rip off we taxpayers&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If this is what &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;rare” healthcare fraud looks like&comma; I’d hate to see an example of what real fraud in Medicare and Medicaid might look like&period;&nbsp&semi; Oh&comma; we just did&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>So&comma; there &OpenCurlyQuote;tis&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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