Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak is set to testify before a Senate panel this week after his scoop on Ohio’s Medicaid payment system triggered renewed scrutiny from Republican lawmakers over government waste and fraud.
Rosiak, whose recent “Medicaid Millionaires” series uncovered what he described as billions in questionable taxpayer-funded home health payments using newly released federal billing data, is scheduled to appear before a panel convened by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the longtime Republican watchdog who has made rooting out federal waste, fraud, and abuse a signature issue.
The hearing is expected to feature testimony not only on Ohio’s Medicaid system, but on broader failures in state-administered welfare programs that rely heavily on federal dollars.
Rosiak’s reporting generated national attention after detailing how hundreds of little-known home health companies clustered in the Columbus area, many receiving millions in taxpayer reimbursements for loosely defined “personal services” such as homemaking, companionship, and conversation. The series also highlighted that providers appeared to operate out of near-empty office buildings while billing Medicaid enormous sums.
Joining Rosiak on the Republican witness list are two Minnesota whistleblowers who raised alarms about fraud inside that state’s Department of Human Services.
Faye Bernstein, a longtime DHS contract specialist and compliance officer, is expected to testify that she faced retaliation after flagging contracting practices she believed created serious risks for fraud. Bernstein has said DHS officials removed her from her workplace and barred her from department property after she challenged leadership over compliance failures.
Also scheduled to testify is Jay Swanson, a retired investigator who spent years probing Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program. Swanson has claimed that beginning in 2014, he uncovered an extensive fraud scheme involving childcare reimbursements that may have exceeded $100 million annually. According to Swanson, the scheme involved a network of daycare operations run by Somali immigrants.
Swanson has further alleged that his warnings were met not with enforcement action but institutional resistance, including efforts to suppress his findings and restructure his office to limit investigations.
Democrats will call Donald Sherman, the head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as their witness, setting up a partisan clash over how best to tackle fraud in public programs while preserving social safety nets.
The hearing marks a major escalation for Rosiak’s Ohio investigation, which has already prompted public reactions from Vice President JD Vance and Ohio GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy. Both Republicans said they would look into potential abuse following The Daily Wire series, which found that Ohio’s Medicaid waiver system created a vast, lightly monitored industry built around billing taxpayers for in-home services that are difficult to verify.
For Republicans, the hearing offers a chance to frame state welfare fraud as emblematic of a broader federal spending crisis. Democrats will likely attempt to make the hearing a battleground over whether investigators are unfairly targeting immigrant communities while seeking cuts to entitlement programs.
A hearing date has been set for Wednesday, with testimony expected to center on whether federal and state agencies failed to detect — or ignored warnings about — fraud schemes that whistleblowers say operated in plain sight for years.
Rosiak will also testify in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday before state lawmakers about his investigative findings. While in Ohio, he’ll appear at an anti-fraud event alongside Ramaswamy.
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