‘We Are Going To Turn Off The Money’: Vance’s Anti-Fraud Taskforce To Make States Prove They Prosecute Fraud:
Vance announced that the government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to California for its leaders’ neglect.
THE WHITE HOUSE — Vice President J.D. Vance announced Wednesday that his anti-fraud task force is going to force states to prove that they actually prosecute fraud, threatening to strip billions from state legal coffers if they do not comply.
Each state has a taxpayer-funded Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), which is specifically designed to fund investigations and prosecutions of Medicaid fraud. Vance said that the states will need to prove they are “aggressively” going after fraud, and if they are not, they will be stripped of all MFCU money so the federal government can do their jobs for them.
“We have red states and blue states that go after fraud aggressively, but we also unfortunately have some states, mostly blue states, unfortunately, that do not take Medicaid fraud very seriously,” Vance said at a press briefing in the Indian Treaty Room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Vance clarified that the task force will target the funding of impotent prosecution teams, not money allocated to program recipients.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, vice chair of the anti-fraud task force, said states allowing fraud are a “result of decades of corruption, particularly in blue states,” noting that many of them “have taken tens of billions of dollars to pay lawyers” to prosecute fraud, but have little or nothing to show for it.
“When the states just take this money and turn it into a jobs program for blue state lawyers, they are effectively participating in the elder abuse in those states, because the American people turn over their money to these state programs to protect their parents and their grandparents from elder abuse, and if you aren’t doing it, you are effectively participating in that process,” Ferguson said.
Vance said that if states refuse to prove they are going after fraud, “we are going to turn off that anti-fraud money,” and said the issue can escalate to turning off other resources as well.
“Our goal here is not to do that. We don’t want to turn off any money. What we want to do is ensure that people are taking fraud seriously,” he added. “We want to protect Medicaid. We want to protect Medicare, but we can’t do that if the states that are administering those programs are allowing those programs to be fleeced by fraudsters.”
When asked by The Federalist about whether the government suspects federal or state bureaucrats might be complicit in the fraud, Vance said it is “possible” and that his team is looking into whether there are cases that rise to the level of criminal conduct.
“As much as we care about protecting these programs, we also care about ensuring that federal and state officers aren’t violating the law, and if they are violating law, then of course we have to prosecute, and that’s an important part of the justice under law,” Vance said. “So we’re looking into this stuff, but I can’t … commit to it, because, unlike the last administration, we tend to only prosecute people when they actually violate the law, not just because they have the wrong political affiliation.” --->READ MORE HERE
Trump task force is tackling $250 billion in government fraud. It’s just getting started:
Anti-fraud effort has executed search warrants, secured prison sentences and kicked 800 questionable providers from Medicare
For years, the American government failed to protect its citizens from fraudsters, and instead let people, often foreign-born immigrants from the developing world, take advantage of this nation’s generous spirit and bleed its taxpayers dry. Thanks to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, the American people are learning in real-time that we don’t have to accept this. Like all anti-civilizational forces, putting up with fraudsters fleecing the American taxpayer is a choice. We choose "no more," and the president’s new Anti-Fraud Taskforce is our instrument of justice.
Vance, chairman of the Anti-Fraud Taskforce, and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, are leading an unprecedented whole-of-government effort in the war against fraud. Unlike the Biden administration, Vance has warned that no amount of fraud is too small to prosecute, saying, "We [did] not prosecute fraud in this country if it’s under $1.5 million per year." How absurd and insulting is that? The average lifetime tax contribution of one U.S. citizen is approximately $500,000. Before the task force, the government would simply turn a blind eye to fraud so large it would wipe out the lifetime tax contributions of three Americans!
This is the fundamental difference between the Trump administration and those that preceded it. If you allow chaos, disorder and criminality, however small, the entire system will collapse. But if you refuse to cede any ground to the criminals, you can take back the whole field of battle. And as Trump has said, we are in a war on fraud. Finally, it’s a war we are winning.
Americans deserve better than to be ripped off and deprived of programs designed to help Americans in need. Perhaps this is the most crucial insight Vance brings to this war. The very programs that helped him and his family at their time of greatest need are at risk of becoming insolvent if something urgent isn’t done and done now.
But going to war requires strategy. Thankfully, the task force has one, and it’s working at unmatched levels. Prior to Trump’s return to office, government agencies waited until fraudsters had already been given a payout before even checking the legitimacy of recipients. Anyone who is familiar with financial prosecutions understands that it’s much easier to police fraud before the money leaves the account.
Previously, the government had a "pay-and-chase" policy, which is idiotic in the extreme. It’s believed that every year the United States loses about $250 billion to fraud but recovers only about $10 billion, a recovery rate of just 4%.
Today, the administration is implementing advanced forensic accounting and fraud detection tools to identify problematic applications before fraudsters are handed a check. Advanced AI tools are being utilized to detect suspicious patterns, inconsistencies and concealment schemes. And they’re targeting more than just Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The task force is also going after high-risk programs like SNAP benefits, student loans and small business loans, to name a few. --->READ MORE HERE
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK
here, GETTR
here, and TWITTER
here.
No comments:
Post a Comment