those crimes. Rather than assist CA, Trump prefers to throw political mud at Democrats. On a related note, do you agree with DJT's firing of 17 Inspectors General just after taking office?...If so...why?

Here are some excerpts from The Paper of Record, about this issue...Seems as though Nick Shirley, willfully or not, has left some important information out of his commentary.
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Hospice fraud in California has been remarkably brazen. Medicare recipients have been signed up for care without their knowledge by thieves who stole their identities. Providers have paid kickbacks to people to enroll even though they aren’t terminally ill and don’t qualify. Sham companies have fabricated lists of employees.

The schemes have been an irresistible political target for President Trump, who mentioned California as a top offender when he created a task force last month to root out corruption in federally funded programs. He said that he believed that fraud in the nation’s most populous state was “10 times worse” than anywhere else.

But long before Mr. Trump weighed in, state investigators had uncovered rampant fraud in California’s hospice system on their own. For years, state and federal officials had been taking steps to combat abuses, and the state has stopped issuing new hospice licenses.

Despite the actions underway, Mr. Trump has made hospice fraud in California a new political flashpoint.
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Mr. Newsom in 2021 signed legislation imposing a moratorium on new hospice licenses — a ban that remains in place and that he regularly mentions on social media. His administration this month released a new website dedicated to detailing how the state goes after fraud. Since 2021, the state has filed 109 hospice-related criminal cases and revoked 280 hospice licenses. Another 300 hospice licenses are under review, according to the health department.

“Trump and his right-wing media machine are pushing a fraud narrative about blue states like California to distract from their policy failures — all while ignoring rampant fraud in red states. It’s a deliberate distraction,” Marissa Salvidar, a spokeswoman for Mr. Newsom, said in an email.

Medicare advocates in California say they have also been urging the Trump administration to ramp up its own enforcement. In recent weeks, the federal government has made it easier for people to rapidly disenroll from hospice if they were added without their knowledge, allowing them to have access to their Medicare benefits again. And it has begun sending letters to beneficiaries in some states notifying them that they have been enrolled in hospice, so they will know if they were wrongly added.

Catherina Isidro, executive director of California Health Advocates, a nonprofit, said she didn’t want to get in the middle of a political battle, but was grateful these issues were getting more traction. Her organization runs a federally funded hotline designated to prevent, detect and report Medicare malfeasance to Congress.
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