It’s been almost two months since President Trump took the bold step of officially forming the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.
We’ve already uncovered tens of billions of dollars in defrauded taxpayer money, prosecuted dozens of fraudsters, and stopped billions in suspicious payments. And we’re just getting started.
So why has it taken the federal government until now to finally tackle fraud? Because Andrew Ferguson and I are taking a new approach. Here’s how.
Until President Trump’s inauguration, federal anti-fraud efforts have been defined by a “pay-and-chase” approach: federal agencies like HHS issue payments and then only take steps to identify fraud on the back-end. The federal government might prosecute the alleged fraudsters—but only if the fraud is big enough.
It’s a flawed approach that’s predictably exploited. Every year, the United States loses about $250B to fraud but recovers only about $10B.
Plain and simple, “pay-and-chase” does not stop fraud.
Our new approach starts will close coordination. We are orchestrating all federal agencies’ anti-fraud efforts from the White House. Rather than haphazard fraud mitigation, the Task Force is focusing agencies’ efforts on target programs where spending is high, but anti-fraud protections are low.
We’re already uncovering major fraud scandals across a range of federal programs:
Kelly Loeffler has referred $22.B in fraudulent loans for collection.
Linda McMahon has identified $1B in fraudulent student loans from “ghost students.”
Brooke Rollins has identified 14,000 luxury-car owners receiving SNAP benefits in just one state.
We are ramping up federal prosecutions against fraudsters – not just because American taxpayers deserve justice, but because active enforcement holds fraudsters accountable and deters fraud in the first place.
Our message is simple: No fraud is too big or too small to prosecute. If you are defrauding the American taxpayer, we will find you and take you to court.
To do so, we established a new Fraud Division at DOJ led by AAG Colin McDonald. In just the last two months, they’ve put fraudsters on notice.
They’ve executed 22 search warrants against fraudulent day care centers in Minnesota, including the “Quality Learing Center.”
They’ve launched a major crackdown in LA against Medicare fraudsters who stole over $50M.
They’ve secured multi-year prison sentences against fraudsters in a $522M health care scheme.
We are also ordering the States to hold up their end of the bargain and police fraudsters in the federal programs they oversee. Today, governors in all 50 states were sent letters to use their existing resources to identify and prosecute fraudsters in the Medicaid program.
Alongside aggressive prosecution, the Task Force is preventing fraud before taxpayer money leaves the federal government. Agencies will now pay only when they are confident that a payment is legitimate and lawful.
As a result, Trump administration agencies are now establishing fraud indicators and analyzing data to detect patterns of fraud -- things like unreasonable growth, impossible services, and other hallmarks of fraud. When an unacceptable risk of fraud is identified, the money stops.
We’re seeing this approach pay dividends already in one of the biggest federal programs: Medicare.
@DrOz has identified nearly 800 suspected fraudulent providers of hospice and home health care services and withheld payment for their questionable services. So far we have saved $1.4B in potentially fraudulent payments and have paused enrollment of additional providers while @DrOz roots out other fraudsters in the system.
This is an approach that works and will be scaled to other federal programs.
The days of “pay-and-chase” are over. It’s time to PREVENT and PROSECUTE. Stay tuned for more @WHFraudTF.
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