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On the Alex Marlow Show, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), issued a stern warning regarding the Trump administration’s intent to crack down on fraud, particularly in Minnesota. This initiative aims to tackle misuse of taxpayer funds within the state, a significant portion of which has been linked to Somali refugees who have settled there over the past few decades.
Recent investigations have uncovered alarming levels of financial misconduct in Minnesota, prompting federal authorities to scrutinize not only the perpetrators but also state officials who have allegedly enabled these activities. Amid this growing scandal, Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz has attempted to mitigate the situation by appointing a new Director of Program Integrity. This role is specifically focused on preventing fraud across state programs.
Fox 9 has reported staggering figures released by the U.S. Department of Justice, indicating that Minnesota has suffered approximately $822 million in fraudulent losses. This includes $300 million from the Feeding Our Future initiative, nearly $220 million from autism-related programs, and $302 million from the Housing Stabilization Program.
Dr. Oz, known for his medical expertise and television career, has been vocal about his intolerance for fraud within programs under his purview. He recently sent a strong message to Governor Walz, emphasizing the potential withdrawal of Medicaid funding if the alleged fraud is not addressed effectively.
During his conversation with Marlow, Dr. Oz detailed the factors that have allowed such fraud to flourish and outlined his strategy for curbing this issue in Minnesota and other states. His approach underscores a commitment to ensuring accountability and integrity within federally funded programs.
“If we’re unsatisfied with the state’s plans or cooperation, we’ll stop paying the federal share of these programs,” Oz wrote. “The message to Walz is clear: either fix this in 60 days or start looking under your couch for spare change, because we’re done footing the bill for your incompetence.”
The renowned doctor, television personality, and now high-level government administrator explained to Marlow how the fraud has been allowed to escalate – and how he will target and eliminate it in Minnesota and elsewhere.
“We can take away funding for some of these programs that were under waivers, created, again, initially to do things that you’d all sort of high five about,” Oz said. “You know, a person is homeless, get them a place to stay for a little bit when they leave the hospital, help transport people without the opportunity to get to a clinic visit so they can get that care, and a whole slew of other opportunities, including, by the way, advanced ways of helping children with autism, are on the spectrum, cope with life by giving them services to take them to parks and the like. It all sounds great, doesn’t it? But if you weaponize that by allowing unscrupulous people to get access to the kitty, they’ll take you for a ride.”
Half of $18 billion in federal welfare funds, which supports 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018, has been lost to fraud, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said during a press conference Thursday, singling out autism and housing services. People come from all over the world to steal millions from U.S. government Medicaid, housing, and other programs, he added.
Oz elaborated on the remarkable fraud in the autism program alone, which he says is budgeted at only $3 million per year but is defrauded for many times that amount:
They spent $400 million on this program. Why? Because [fraudsters] got parents of kids who did not have autism to lie and claim that their children did have autism. Then they had other parents get their kids or themselves trained up with this, you know, 40 hour fly by night course to be a so called expert on this, and they would take the kids and babysit them. It’s one big scam. And then we find out that the perpetrators of this are buying up real estate, luxury cars, property in Nigeria or back in Somalia, where many of them came from, maybe, funding terrorist organizations, as you allude.
While investigators continue targeting alleged funding of terrorist organizations from defrauded taxpayer dollars, Oz said the fraud in the housing program, which he shut down, is undebatable, proclaiming, “That’s just not going to happen anymore.”
But those aren’t the only programs subject to the widespread fraud that has proliferated in Minnesota.
“There are 14 of these different projects that [Minnesota] got permission from us to do some advanced work on, progressive work,” he explained. “It doesn’t seem like they’re able to monitor well the financial implications of these, so they’re getting taken for a ride, and no one seems to have been watching the till. These accusations started several years ago on some of the earlier programs that during covid were created to feed kids. When these folks found out that no one was watching, they began to take that same tactic and rinse and repeat it over and over again to defraud us in other areas.”
The fraud in Minnesota should teach a “bigger lesson” to government officials too often slow to act, Oz asserted.
“When you find fraud – and fraudsters are good at finding it – they’ll milk it for as long as they can,” he said. “So you have to come down hard.”
The Alex Marlow Show, hosted by – Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow, is a weekday podcast produced by – News and Salem Podcast Network. You can subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Rumble, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
