The Patriot Post® · California Hospice Schemin'

By Emmy Griffin ·
https://patriotpost.us/articles/125850-california-hospice-schemin-2026-03-13

Remember a few months back when Nick Shirley exposed the massive welfare fraud being perpetrated by Somalis in Minnesota? Remember how the Left eviscerated him, claiming the way this independent journalist went about the investigation wasn’t bona fide journalism because he was merely a YouTube influencer who went door-to-door asking questions?

You know, like real journalists are supposed to do.

Well, following the revelation of fraud in Minnesota, CBS News took it upon itself to do some legitimate journalism by gathering information on probable fraud happening in California.

Unsurprisingly, the Golden State has a rampant problem with Medicare fraud, particularly in hospice care. Fraudsters steal taxpayers’ Medicare identities and charge the federal government for supposed hospice patient services. In Los Angeles County alone, auditors have estimated that taxpayers are defrauded of $105 million every single year.

According to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, hospice in California “is crazy.” He added, “You’ve got hospice that’s grown seven-fold in the last five years. They represent about three and a half billion dollars of fraud, we believe, just in LA County.” He later pointed out, “Eighteen percent of the whole country’s home healthcare billing is coming out of Los Angeles County. How is that possible?”

Hospice fraud is particularly easy to commit. According to Fox News, citing a Los Angeles hospice owner, “A whistleblower told us there’s no limit on the number of hospices an individual can own, and applicants can live abroad.”

CBS centers its investigation on LA County precisely because it has the highest concentration of hospices. There are, in fact, 1,800 hospices there, which CBS notes “is more than six times the national average for the county’s senior population.”

CBS also reports that, although this type of Medicare fraud has been around for a while, it has grown exponentially. The report elaborates, “California is confronting this problem as Gavin Newsom, its Democratic governor, eyes a potential presidential run.” In other words, because Newsom saw how quickly rampant fraud ended Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s career, he is going to make it appear as if he is tackling the problem.

Newsom, though, isn’t doing nearly enough, which is the theme of his tenure as governor. He promised a high-speed train. It still hasn’t come to fruition. He promised to tackle the problem of homelessness. The only time San Francisco’s streets were cleared of vagrants was when Chinese dictator Xi Jinping came to visit.

Newsom’s official statement in January on the subject of Medicare fraud asserted, “Under Governor Newsom’s administration, California has cracked down on hospice fraud, launched partnerships across state agencies, and the California Department of Justice has arrested criminals to hold them accountable.”

It is the state’s responsibility to approve hospice licenses. Government officials are supposed to keep an eye out for six key indicators of fraud: multiple hospices in one building, many hospices clustered in a geographic location, low patient counts, high rates of patients being discharged alive even though they were terminally ill, excessive billing, and shared staff with other hospices in the area.

However, just as California doesn’t really care if a CDL driver can’t speak English, the state doesn’t really follow up or investigate potential hospice fraud, even when it’s metaphorically waving all the red flags. CBS visited one of the hospices that met at least five indicators of fraud. Inside was an abandoned office with unopened mail littering the floor. Next door was ostensibly another hospice, and even though it had signage and posted office hours, no one came; the phone number for the business didn’t connect.

“None of the hospices flagged in the CBS News analysis turned up in California’s enforcement actions database,” the report revealed. “Since 2022, when the state published its audit report, California’s Department of Public Health has issued enforcement actions against seven hospice facilities statewide — despite the state auditor warning that fraud was rampant.”

Newsom responded on social media by blaming President Donald Trump, per usual.

It is important to reemphasize that it is the state’s job to issue licenses and vet hospices. The only indication of any hopeful change is that the state has issued a moratorium on new hospice licenses until January 2027.

While we are grateful for some actual journalism from legacy media sources like CBS, it is worth pointing out that what it did was materially no different from what Nick Shirley did. He used publicly available resources, tracked down fraudsters, and talked to them in person. CBS did the same thing, and its reporters are being lauded as heroes — at least for now — whereas Democrats continue to drag Shirley through the mud.

California is clearly in the well-deserved crosshairs of public scrutiny. Let’s stop the waste, fraud, and abuse there. And if exposing fraud just so happens to scuttle Gavin Newsom’s presidential ambitions in 2028, so much the better.

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