The nation should be outraged, but much of the mainstream press is oddly quiet as Dr. Mehmet Oz—now running Medicare and Medicaid oversight—pulls back the curtain on a sprawling healthcare theft scheme centered in California. Oz says organized criminal networks have weaponized hospice and home-health billing to siphon billions from taxpayers while vulnerable seniors are exploited.
According to the figures Oz has highlighted, Los Angeles County alone has become an alleged epicenter where criminal rings corrupted medical providers, enrolled ineligible patients, and billed for care never provided — numbers in the billions and Medicare IDs in the six figures. This isn’t petty fraud; it’s an industrial-scale theft that lines criminal pockets and drains the system meant to protect our elders.
These revelations come amid coordinated federal enforcement actions and the Department of Justice’s largest healthcare fraud takedowns in recent memory, showing investigators are finally using modern tools to follow the money. Federal officials, joined by CMS, have stressed that stolen medical identities, sham providers, and phony claims are precisely the kind of threats the American people expect their government to stop.
Predictably, California’s political class reacted first by deflection. Governor Gavin Newsom’s office called the claims “unbelievable” and insisted the state had already been working on hospice fraud for years, but that response smells more like spin than accountability. When fraud metastasizes to the scale Oz is describing, excuses from the same leaders who presided over open borders and lax oversight simply won’t cut it.
If the national press cared about protecting taxpayers instead of protecting narratives, this story would be front-page news and lawmakers in both parties would be demanding rapid reforms. Instead, conservative outlets and independent commentators are forced to amplify the story—reminding everyday Americans that fighting corruption means confronting allied interests, not pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
Make no mistake: Dr. Oz has long been skeptical of abusive insurance practices, from Medicare Advantage upcoding to other schemes that inflate payments and reward gaming over genuine care. His track record of calling out industry abuses gives weight to his latest warnings and should be a clarion call for aggressive enforcement and legislative fixes.
Patriotic Americans must demand that Washington stop coddling fraud and start protecting patients and taxpayers. Support the investigators, back administrators who actually pursue the criminals, and stop giving career politicians a pass when they look the other way — because until we hold the guilty accountable, hardworking citizens will keep paying the bill.
