Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, declared that “no amount of fraud is too big or too small” and stated that the task force plans to target bad actors regardless of the amount of money they have stolen from taxpayers.
During a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia on Tuesday, Vance highlighted the task force’s early victories.
‘If you’re defrauding the taxpayer, you ought to go to prison, and anybody who’s helping you ought to go to prison too.’
President Donald Trump established the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud by executive order in mid-March. Since then, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has worked with the task force to close hundreds of allegedly fraudulent health care providers.
On Tuesday, Vance discussed the issue of widespread fraud in the Minneapolis area, stating that the task force had turned off a government assistance program for autistic children that was being widely exploited.
“We’ve completely stopped the funding to that program. And we basically told the state of Minnesota, ‘You don’t get any more of our money unless you’ve verified that you’re taking fraud seriously,’” he stated, and the crowd responded with applause.
The federal government announced in February that it was withholding $259.5 million in Medicaid funding from Minnesota.
RELATED: Vance’s task force shutters 221 hospices in ‘fraud king’ Gavin Newsom’s California
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
During Tuesday’s event, Vance commended CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz for his work on eliminating fraud.
“We had our weekly fraud check-in call two weeks ago, and Dr. Oz called in, but he’s like, ‘Hey, I got to go because I’m about to hop on the bus, and we’re going to go arrest a bunch of fraudsters in Los Angeles.’ And I was like, ‘That’s exactly what I want you to do. By all means, get off the phone.’ So we’re doing a lot of that stuff.”
Vance explained that under the Biden administration, the federal government overlooked fraudsters who stole smaller amounts of money from taxpayers. He stated that this approach has changed under the Trump administration.
“No amount of fraud is too big or too small. If you’re defrauding the taxpayer, you ought to go to prison, and anybody who’s helping you ought to go to prison too,” Vance remarked.
RELATED: How a California crook committed $178 million worth of health care fraud — in just one year
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As of Wednesday, the task force has suspended 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies in Los Angeles, with an estimated fraud total exceeding $600 million.
“With @VP’s leadership, we’re crushing fraud faster than ever,” Oz stated.
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