‘If You Thought the Fraud Was Out of Control in Minnesota…’: Dr. Oz [WATCH]

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, spoke about what he described as widespread fraud, waste, and abuse within Los Angeles County’s health care system, focusing on hospice and home health care programs.

Dr. Oz said, “I’m here in Los Angeles. US Attorney’s Office. We’re talking about fraud. This place has become one of the epicenters for fraud, waste and abuse in America, three and a half billion dollars just here in Los Angeles County, we think around hospice and home health care.”

He compared the scale of the issue in California to similar problems seen elsewhere, stating, “Then you add in all the other things like they have in Minnesota, but in California scale, it’s huge.”

Warning: Account balances and purchasing power no longer tell the same story. Know in 2 minutes if your retirement is working for you.

Dr. Oz described a sharp rise in hospice utilization in the county and said the increase could not be explained by natural causes.

He stated, “And what we have witnessed is a seven fold increase in hospice in LA County, sevenfold. That doesn’t happen naturally. They’re not seven times more deaths in LA County than there were five years ago.”

He attributed the growth to organized criminal activity and foreign influence, saying, “These fraudsters, and these do tend to be foreign influences. These are Russian Armenian gangs, Mafia that are leading a lot of these efforts, we believe, have been able to corrupt and work with doctors who are willing to lie to use that MD degree as a degree as a license to kill.”

Dr. Oz continued by describing how fraud had become normalized within parts of the system, stating, “Lot of it’s driven by foreigners who came to Los Angeles, very different culture, Russian Armenian groups and this mafia seems to have taken over the system. They corrupt the doctors, they normalized fraud so that everyone sort of expects it.”

This Could Be the Most Important Video Gun Owners Watch All Year

He emphasized the scale of the problem and the need for aggressive action, saying, “But the magnitude of it is so great that we have to take it on aggressively.”

Dr. Oz said the issue is a priority for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the current administration, stating, “It’s a focus area for CMS and this administration, under President Trump, is not going to tolerate taxpayer dollars being stolen because people aren’t paying attention anymore.”

He concluded by reiterating the administration’s focus on enforcement, saying, “We’re focused on this.”

WATCH: