Billions of dollars in alleged fraudulent healthcare spending is being investigated in California, specifically probing foreign nationals operating illegal hospice facilities — officials announced Friday in a bombshell press conference.
“We have witnessed a sevenfold increase in hospice in LA County, sevenfold. That doesn’t happen naturally,” Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told The Post during at the press conference.
“There is not seven times more deaths in LA County than there were five years ago. These are fraudsters, and these do tend to be foreign influences, either Russian and Armenian gangs, mafia, that are leading a lot of these efforts.”
Fraudsters who run these facilities are working with about “100 bad doctors,” who convince a patient they’re dying to enroll them in hospice care, Dr Oz said, adding about 100,000 people have handed over their Medicare numbers.
“We are major focused on this issue, and I think our suspicion, our belief, is that the fraud in California will magnify whatever’s happening in Minnesota,” United States Attorney Bill Essayli said. “What’s happening in Minnesota pales in comparison to the level of fraud that we believe is occurring in California.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back on the allegations, writing on X that the he has “blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artist Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”
The fraud allegations came to light after the Trump administration announced recently it will appoint a new attorney general position to focus on tackling fraud.
