The Patriot Post® · Vance Targets a 'Blatant Waste' of Taxpayer Money in Ohio

“These shocking allegations, if true, show why the Fraud Task Force’s work is so important,” Vice President JD Vance posted on X on Monday. “I’m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate.”

Along with his post, Vance included a link to a story about his home state of Ohio, where 94 Medicaid “home health” companies were tied to the same single office building and had collected over $66 million in federal taxpayer funding.

Daily Wire investigative journalist Luke Rosiak reported that the potential for fraud was massive: “This includes people getting paid to provide ‘companionship & conversation’ to their own relatives. Fraud [is] almost impossible to prove because service happens in private houses. Home health was supposed to save money because it’s cheaper than being in a nursing home. Problem is, no one fakes their way into a nursing home. But lots of people will claim to be sick if they get to stay at home and get free checks for their family.”

This looks like the fraud scams uncovered in Minnesota’s Somali community, some of which were also tied to Medicaid.

Rosiak notes that what made exposing massive federal fraud possible is a move the Department of Government Efficiency made right before it closed down: “DOGE published a massive trove of data in February that, for the first time, lets the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for. For decades, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy. One of the largest government programs was a black box.”

Digging into this massive trove of data, Rosiak has been uncovering, as he put it, “the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter.”

The fraud scheme rests on waivers that expand Medicaid well beyond what the program was meant to cover. As in Minnesota, the Ohio state government disburses Medicaid funds to pay people to visit the homes of Medicaid recipients to provide basic “homemaking” and “chores,” such as cooking and cleaning. The individuals who provide these “personal services” do not need to meet any healthcare worker status. Furthermore, many of these “personal services” providers are relatives of Medicaid recipients.

As a result, there are no regulatory systems in place to ensure that these providers are actually providing services or even visiting the homes of Medicaid recipients.

“As people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families,” Rosiak reports, “northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid. 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.”

Here we see another immigrant community — and not just any immigrant community, but the particularly pirate-like Somalis — pillaging our country in a massive fraud scheme to the tune of billions of American taxpayer dollars.

With the national debt recently topping 100% of GDP, concern about fraud matters — especially since Medicaid’s $618 billion alone accounts for over 9% of the federal government’s annual spending.

With this latest exposé and VP Vance directing the Fraud Task Force to investigate his home state, it’s obvious that fraud is not confined to blue states; it appears to be a nationwide issue.

Fraud not only sours people’s views of Medicaid itself but also breaks their trust in political leaders who have been tasked with the careful distribution of welfare services. However, it appears that the age-old problem of “not my money, not my concern” has become the prevailing attitude among too many government workers. And if fraud is not addressed and people are not held accountable, the problem will only get worse.