By Sonja Sharp
LOS ANGELES (Los Angeles Times) — Trump administration officials announced a sprawling probe into benefits fraud across California on January 9, citing what they called a massive, coordinated effort by “foreign actors” to fleece government healthcare to the tune of billions of dollars.
The crackdown appeared to center on bogus hospice providers first exposed by the Times in 2020 and later investigated by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
“Eighteen percent of the whole country’s home healthcare billing is coming out of Los Angeles County — how is that possible?” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “It’s about $3.5 billion just in L.A. County for hospice and home healthcare.”
The move comes just days after Washington froze $10 billion in federal funding for child care in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota over “serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
“What’s happening in Minnesota pales in comparison to the level of fraud that we believe is occurring in California,” said Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, referring to the benefits scandal that erupted out of that state’s Somali community late last year.
