The white coats are dirty. On Tuesday, the Justice Department dropped a hammer on 455 people, including 90 doctors, accusing them of orchestrating a massive $6.5 billion healthcare fraud and opioid racket. It’s the Trump administration’s latest attempt to show they are cleaning up the system. Or at least, making a loud noise while doing it.
“This is just the beginning,” warned Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He promised to hunt down fraudsters and seize their assets. Standard tough-on-crime rhetoric. But behind the press conference podium lies a grim reality of systemic rot.
People died. Take Kaiden Francis. He was 18. A college basketball player with his whole life ahead of him. Prosecutors say a medical professional rubber-stamped his heart test as normal, ignoring an enlarged heart. Weeks later, Francis collapsed and died during a workout. The family was never warned. It’s sickening.
Forty-five states joined the dragnet. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cheered the effort. Naturally, there is a political undercurrent. The administration has focused heavily on Medicare and Medicaid fraud in blue states, prompting local governors to cry foul and allege political targeting. Meanwhile, Dr. Mehmet Oz, now running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is treating the crackdown like a daytime TV segment. He’s out filming videos in “hotspots,” trying to kill fraudulent payments before the checks clear.
The scams themselves are breathtakingly brazen. One Arizona outfit allegedly raked in $2 billion in fraudulent wound care claims. Texas had its own $906 million scheme. In California, a hospice owner allegedly bribed a funeral home worker to get names of the recently deceased, just to bill Medicare for a few extra days of “care.” Dead people don’t complain.
Medicaid got hit hard too. The sweep netted 295 defendants and uncovered $518 million in fake claims. That is a record. Still, the total dollar amount is actually down from last year, when the DOJ chased $14.6 billion across 324 defendants. But in this town, a multi-billion-dollar bust is always a win for the cameras.
