Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Trump administration would not rest until “justice is served” to those defrauding the American taxpayer through government welfare programs. 
Vance’s comments came shortly after the Justice Department <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/minnesotas-latest-fraud-bust-may-be-the-most-disturbing-yet?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=11&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Minnesota%E2%80%99s+Latest+Fraud+Bust+May+Be+The+Most+Disturbing+Yet">charged</a> 15 people across Minnesota with stealing $90 million through various fraud schemes targeting Medicaid and social service programs. Fraud in Minnesota has received widespread attention after independent journalist Nick Shirley took a camera to questionable entities raking in taxpayer dollars and asked about their operations. 
“Our message is simple: if you were committing fraud, our task force will find you. We&#8217;ll come after you, and we will not rest until justice is served,” Vance said in a video message. “Don&#8217;t defraud the American taxpayer. Don&#8217;t get rich by trying to steal from them, or we are going to come after you until justice is served. That&#8217;s our promise, and we&#8217;re going to stick to it.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Today, the task force and the DOJ announced a massive take down of two of the largest Medicaid fraud cases in Minnesota state history, as well as the largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the federal government. Our message is simple: if you’re committing fraud, we will… <a href="https://t.co/MNfkLlOY0R">pic.twitter.com/MNfkLlOY0R</a>
— JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/2057628977934524450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Vance, heading up the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force, said that the charges announced Thursday included two of the largest Medicaid fraud cases in Minnesota history and the largest autism fraud case ever brought by the federal government. 
“With this action, we&#8217;re bringing justice to some of America&#8217;s most vulnerable citizens and justice to the American taxpayer,” he said. 
Medicaid fraud has come under heavy scrutiny from Republican officials in recent weeks after Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/medicaid-millionaires">published a series</a> documenting how Ohio spent a billion dollars on home healthcare in 2024. The home healthcare services included activities such as “homemaking” and “chores” for family members. 
The report found that just seven buildings in Columbus housed 288 home healthcare businesses that billed taxpayers more than $250 million. State officials appear to do little vetting for the so-called home healthcare companies. Vance has warned that states that do not combat fraud could lose their Medicaid funding. 
The vice president noted that one of the cases brought Thursday involved a defendant accused of billing Medicaid for around-the-clock care for a disabled man who was later found dead after receiving no actual services.
“To get rich off taxpayers, even at the cost of others&#8217; lives, just as that fraudster had for many months before. This kind of behavior is sickening,” Vance said. 
Aimee Bock, the founder of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison on Thursday over a $250 million fraud case involving meals supposedly given to children during the COVID pandemic.

Vice President JD Vance Visits A Manufacturing Facility In Kansas City

JD Vance’s ‘Simple’ Message After Massive Medicaid Fraud Takedown

Department of Justice

Fraud

JD Vance

Medicaid Millionaires

Minnesota

After uncovering a billion-dollar fraud scheme in Ohio, Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak testified on Capitol Hill this week, expecting bipartisan concern, but Democrats didn’t offer it. 
Rosiak testified before the Senate Small Business Committee on Wednesday during a hearing dominated by Republican lawmakers. The only Democrat in attendance was Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), whose presence was required as the minority ranking member. 
Rosiak later quipped, “The hearing room may as well have been a learing center with the number of Democrats who showed up today,” referencing a misspelled sign outside a suspected fraudulent daycare in Minnesota. 
In his opening statement, Markey argued that the Trump administration’s recent anti-fraud initiatives have disproportionately targeted blue states, completely ignoring the fact that Rosiak just uncovered $1 billion in alleged Medicaid fraud in a red state. Markey declined to question Rosiak or any of the Republican witnesses, instead focusing his remarks on criticizing President Donald Trump.
“I agree we should be doing more to prevent fraud,” said Markey. “But we should also be focusing on the Trump-sized hole in the American people’s pockets. We should address rising gas prices, electricity costs, healthcare premiums, food prices, but instead the instances of fraud that congressional Republicans and this administration choose to focus on are solely to secure political points demonizing communities of color and attacking blue states.” 
Markey also chose not to comment on testimony from Faye Bernstein, a compliance specialist for the Minnesota Department of Human Services and a self-described lifelong Democrat. Bernstein testified that she began questioning members of her own party after raising fraud concerns and being “labeled a racist.” 
On Thursday, Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-daily-wire-investigator-called-to-testify-on-findings-in-ohio?row=1&amp;elementPosition=9&amp;rowType=Web+Search">participated</a> in an anti-fraud roundtable hosted by the Republican Study Committee. 
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) kicked off the meeting praising Rosiak “for doing absolutely phenomenal work, uncovering a massive fraud scheme.” He added that the most amazing part was that Rosiak did it all through publicly available data. The committee discussed increasing data transparency to allow greater public access. 
Asked by The Daily Wire where the responsibility for fraud oversight should fall between Congress and investigative journalists, Gill said lawmakers should focus on using “the power of the purse” to ensure taxpayer dollars are not improperly distributed in the first place.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) echoed that criticism, arguing that Congress is a system with warped incentives. 
“We measure effectiveness too often by how much money goes out the door, as opposed to, is it going to where it was intended and is it accomplishing what it was supposed to accomplish.”
Rosiak&#8217;s investigation focused in part on Ohio&#8217;s rapidly expanding home healthcare industry.
Rosiak found that Ohio spent roughly $1 billion on home healthcare services in 2024 alone, much of it through loosely monitored Medicaid programs that allow relatives to receive taxpayer funding for providing in-home “personal services” such as cooking, cleaning, and companionship.
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His investigation uncovered entire office buildings filled with Medicaid-billing home health companies, many run by individuals with little or no healthcare background, and in some cases histories of fraud, unpaid debts, or criminal convictions.
Rosiak partly blames weak certification standards for the problem, as the program requires a licensed professional to certify that a patient needs assistance around the house.
&#8220;It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state,&#8221; Rosiak said.
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Spending Bill – Government Shutdown – Debt Ceiling

Democrats Skip Hearing On Billion-Dollar Fraud Scheme Uncovered By Daily Wire

Senate Democrats

Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak is set to testify before a Senate panel this week after his scoop on Ohio&#8217;s Medicaid payment system triggered renewed scrutiny from Republican lawmakers over government waste and fraud.
Rosiak, whose recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/medicaid-millionaires-how-the-feds-pay-immigrants-billions-to-hang-out-with-their-families">“Medicaid Millionaires”</a> 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&#8217;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 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-medicaid-investigation-triggers-a-1-4-billion-spending-freeze?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Daily+Wire+Medicaid+Investigation+Triggers+A+%241.4+BILLION+Spending+Freeze">JD Vance</a> and Ohio GOP gubernatorial nominee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-reckoning-vivek-is-vowing-after-dw-exposed-the-medicaid-money-trail">Vivek Ramaswamy</a>. 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&#8217;ll appear at an anti-fraud event alongside Ramaswamy.
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Luke Rosiak

EXCLUSIVE: Daily Wire Investigator Called To Testify On Findings In Ohio

Congress

DOGE

Medicaid

waste fraud abuse

Ohio says it is immediately implementing anti-fraud measures in the home health sector, days after claiming it already had such measures, and after a Daily Wire report showed how the administration of Gov. Mike DeWine actually turned off previously-existing fraud protections.
The about-face comes after Vice President JD Vance, who also hails from Ohio, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/vance-threatens-to-cut-funds-to-states-that-ignore-medicaid-fraud-after-daily-wire-investigation">announced</a> on Wednesday that the federal government would be suspending the enrollment of any new home-health companies in the Medicaid program for six months.
DeWine <a href="https://x.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/2054632396666921193">announced</a> in response that he was implementing &#8220;several new fraud prevention initiatives&#8221; that had been &#8220;long in development&#8221; to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid.
The announcement comes amid a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/medicaid-millionaires">Daily Wire investigative series</a> into home health care waste, fraud, and abuse. It comes just a week after the DeWine administration attempted to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6394775650112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismiss</a> The Daily Wire&#8217;s series, telling other media outlets that &#8220;Ohio has extensive oversight mechanisms in place,&#8221; including a safeguard called &#8220;Electronic Visit Verification,&#8221; or EVV.
Ohio spends $1 billion a year on &#8220;home health,&#8221; most often to people who aren&#8217;t medical professionals, to provide services like &#8220;chores,&#8221; &#8220;companionship,&#8221; and &#8220;conversation.&#8221; The people getting paid by Medicaid are frequently the patients&#8217; own family members.
The DeWine administration initially attempted to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6394775650112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismiss</a> The Daily Wire&#8217;s series, telling other media outlets that &#8220;Ohio has extensive oversight mechanisms in place,&#8221; including a safeguard called &#8220;Electronic Visit Verification,&#8221; or EVV.
It garnered sympathetic coverage in local outlets like the Columbus Dispatch, who played down the scandal after the Ohio Department of Medicaid told media May 5 that, &#8220;To confirm that billed services are actually rendered, ODM relies on an extensive set of safeguards, including&#8230; Mandatory electronic visit verification capturing date, time, and service location.&#8221;
But it turns out that wasn&#8217;t entirely true. On Monday, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ohio-says-safeguards-exist-to-stop-medicaid-fraud-but-admits-massive-loophole" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> Ohio wasn&#8217;t actually requiring meaningful EVV. For years, Ohio had been paying people even if there was no verification, according to public testimony by Auditor Keith Faber. Furthermore, the state neutered EVV by making GPS optional, citing privacy concerns for patients.
Dave Yost, the outgoing attorney general of Ohio, had complained to the legislature that making GPS optional had made detecting fraud impossible.
“Until about a year ago [GPS] was required, now it’s optional,” Yost told legislators in March. “I do not know for the life of me why it went away, but I respectfully ask you to put in statute where no vendor, no bureaucrat can object to legitimate monitoring.”
Ohio Department of Medicaid spokeswoman Stephanie O&#8217;Grady told The Daily Wire five days ago that the change was necessary because of patient &#8220;privacy.&#8221;
&#8220;Effective July 1, 2024, GPS functionality within any EVV application or device may only be activated with the signed consent of the individual receiving services—valid for one year and revocable at any time. The approach allows the person receiving care to make an informed decision related to privacy protections for individuals receiving home and community-based services,&#8221; she said in an email.
DeWine&#8217;s administration says it has been taking steps to reimplement the requirement since late last year.
&#8220;In December, DeWine authorized Ohio Medicaid to begin the information technology investments needed to make GPS mandatory for EVV. Ohio Medicaid [is] now ready to make this rule change to implement the requirement,&#8221; it said.
But Ohio&#8217;s implementation of EVV is still easily gamed: Even though it paid $146 million to work with a large provider of tracking software, it allows home health aides to use other software instead, and those systems simply transmit the coordinates as plain text, potentially making it possible to submit fake coordinates.
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s series continues to document the people who own home health companies – such as a husband-and-wife team with repeated convictions for fraud, theft, and assault – the DeWine administration began to backtrack from its initial posture. O&#8217;Grady said Monday that &#8220;improvements were already underway, and The Daily Wire series provides a great reminder as to why we have been pursuing these stronger safeguards for future implementation.&#8221;
DeWine <a href="https://x.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/2054632396666921193" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on social media Wednesday, &#8220;Today I announced several new fraud prevention initiatives to strengthen and build upon long-standing efforts to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in the Ohio Medicaid System. We are ready to begin these initiatives long in development that will enhance Ohio&#8217;s nation-leading work.&#8221;
State lawmaker Mike Dovilla, a Republican who has been critical of the governor, <a href="https://x.com/mikedovilla/status/2054652361008988222?s=46" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replied</a>: &#8220;The only thing that has been &#8216;long in development&#8217; is persistently ignoring and denying these and similar instances of fraud, waste, and abuse.&#8221;
As recently as May 4, the DeWine administration cut the latest check to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/he-was-convicted-for-defrauding-the-government-now-medicaid-pays-his-wife-millions?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=He+Was+Convicted+For+Defrauding+The+Government.+Now+Medicaid+Pays+His+Wife+Millions.">Omega Healthcare Services</a>, which has received nearly $6 million through Medicaid, and is run by a woman who previously had a daycare shut down for not being able to prove the kids were real. Her husband and office-mate was convicted of billing the government for nonexistent elder services, and the company listed the teenage son of a convicted money launderer on corporate documents.
U.S. Rep. <a href="https://x.com/repbrandongill/status/2054668388740313130?s=46" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brandon Gill</a> (R-TX), who on Wednesday was named the chair of a new congressional subcommittee on fraud, said investigating Ohio is at the top of his list, and expressed shock at the lack of oversight of the multi-billion dollar program.
&#8220;Our first action: a formal investigation into a massive Medicaid fraud scandal in Ohio — where hundreds of shell companies operating out of empty office buildings billed taxpayers over $250 million for services that could not be verified,&#8221; Gill said. &#8220;And we believe the full scope of this scandal reaches into the billions.&#8221;
&#8220;A @realDailyWire reporter found this in two months. The agency responsible for stopping it had years,&#8221; he wrote.
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Mike DeWine

Ohio Restores Medicaid Anti-Fraud Measures After Daily Wire Investigation

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday warned that the Trump administration will cut off certain federal anti-fraud funding to states that fail to aggressively investigate Medicaid abuse, escalating the White House’s pressure campaign on governors it says are allowing billions in taxpayer dollars to be siphoned off through fraudulent claims.
Speaking from the White House, Vance announced that the administration is already withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from California, citing what officials described as widespread abuse in the state’s hospice system. The move comes as the administration’s anti-fraud task force broadens its scrutiny of state-run Medicaid programs, particularly in large Democratic-led states such as California, New York, and Hawaii.
“We’re announcing that the federal government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the state of California,” Vance said. “The simple reason is because the state of California has not taken fraud very seriously.”
The administration said it is sending letters to all 50 states requiring them to demonstrate that their Medicaid Fraud Control Units are actively investigating and prosecuting abuse. Vance said states that fail to show meaningful enforcement could lose federal funding intended to support those anti-fraud offices, with broader Medicaid penalties possible if problems persist.
The vice president argued the effort is meant to protect both taxpayers and legitimate beneficiaries, framing fraud as a threat to the long-term solvency of entitlement programs rather than an attempt to cut benefits outright.
Vance said the administration’s focus is not on eliminating Medicaid assistance, but on stopping what he described as widespread abuse by fraudulent providers and bad actors exploiting lax oversight in some states.
He pointed to Ohio as evidence that the problem is national, even in Republican-led states. Vance referenced an ongoing fraud case there involving home health care providers, arguing that abuse exists across the country but has too often gone unaddressed by government officials.
The Ohio case drew national attention earlier this month after an investigation by The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/medicaid-millionaires-how-the-feds-pay-immigrants-billions-to-hang-out-with-their-families?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=DW+Investigation+Reveals+One+Of+The+Biggest+Government+Waste+Scandals+Hiding+In+Plain+Sight">uncovered</a> large-scale Medicaid fraud involving home health agencies and questionable reimbursements, helping thrust the issue into the broader debate over federal oversight.
“This happens everywhere. We’re a big country. Hundreds of billions of dollars goes out the door every single month from the federal government, and inevitably, you’re going to have people who try to take advantage of it,” Vance said. “What bothers me is not that you have a few fraudsters out there, it’s that the government hasn’t taken seriously pushing it back.”
In the clip, Vance further accused fraudulent providers of exploiting vulnerable patients while draining public funds, saying some healthcare operators were prescribing unnecessary medications simply to bill federal programs. He tied the anti-fraud push to the administration’s broader “America First” message, arguing taxpayer-funded health programs “ought to belong to Americans first” and warning that unchecked abuse could “bankrupt those programs.”
He pointed to New York as a prime example, saying the state recorded only nine Medicaid fraud indictments last year despite administering a program worth roughly $100 billion annually.
That comparison drew a contrast with Indiana, which Vance said logged more than four times as many fraud indictments despite having a significantly smaller population. 
“Does anybody here seriously think that the good people of Indiana are 12 times more likely to commit fraud than the people of New York? No, of course not,” Vance said. “The leadership in New York are just not taking the fraud issue seriously.”
Administration officials said the California action centers on alleged abuse among hospice and home health providers around Los Angeles. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who joined Vance at the press conference, said 800 providers had been suspended from federal reimbursements after investigators flagged them as potentially fraudulent. According to Oz, fewer than 20 appealed the decision.
The crackdown is being cheered by Republican state financial officers, many of whom have coordinated with the administration’s broader anti-fraud initiative. 
North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek said the effort reflects a basic duty to taxpayers. 
“It’s not my job to protect government,” Boliek said. “It’s my job to protect the taxpayer, and they need an advocate.”
State Financial Officers Foundation CEO O.J. Oleka said the White House action would strengthen efforts already underway in conservative-led states. 
“Real accountability with real teeth is indispensable for winning the war on fraud,” Oleka said, adding that the group’s 41 affiliated state financial officers have already uncovered billions in improper spending.
Though Vance repeatedly cast the campaign as nonpartisan, the administration’s highest-profile actions so far have targeted Democratic-led states. He insisted the issue transcends party lines, noting that his home state of Ohio has also seen significant fraud cases and that some blue states, including Maryland, have cooperated with federal investigators.
“We are not going to have a generous country if Americans think that they’re paying their taxes not to needy people, but to fraudsters,” Vance said. “That’s fundamentally what we’re trying to fix — rebuilding America’s trust.”

Vance Threatens To Cut Funds To States That Ignore Medicaid Fraud After Daily Wire Investigation

Vance

After a bombshell Daily Wire investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse tied to the government-funded home health care industry, the Trump administration moved on Wednesday to freeze over a billion dollars’ worth of spending and is warning states to root out fraud or pay the price.
The White House fraud task force <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-halting-medicare-enrollments-new-home-healthcare-hospice-providers-2026-05-13/">announced</a> on Wednesday morning that not a single new home health care company would be enrolled in Medicare while the Trump administration probes the program. Around <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-led-task-force-cuts-home-health-hospice-providers-suspected-fraud.amp">$1.4 billion</a> in funding for home health care and hospice providers has been paused. 
“Widespread fraud has gone on for far too ​long. But under the Vice President&#8217;s task force we are finally putting a stop to the massive scale fraudsters ripping off the ​American people once and for all,” said a spokesman for Vice President JD Vance. 
 The announcement comes days after Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/medicaid-millionaires-how-the-feds-pay-immigrants-billions-to-hang-out-with-their-families">published a series of stories</a> documenting how Ohio spent a billion dollars on home health care in 2024. Home health care services can include things like doing “homemaking” and “chores” for family members. 
Vance, who runs the fraud task force, is set to warn states to crack down on fraud or risk losing federal Medicaid funding, the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-jd-vance-medicaid-fraud-40e9e78e">reported</a>. The federal government provides over 60% of Medicaid funding for most states, and the Trump administration is expected to start an audit on Wednesday of state Medicaid Fraud Control Units to ensure they are doing enough to combat fraud. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
These shocking allegations, if true, show why the Fraud Task Force’s work is so important. I’m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate. <a href="https://t.co/dg9prv9mYz">https://t.co/dg9prv9mYz</a>
— JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/2051391872623362379?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
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“Your failure to do your job,” Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Thomas Bell wrote in a letter to the states, “has put all of your state’s Medicaid funds in jeopardy.”
The plan was developed by Vance and Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, who is working with Vance on the task force.
&#8220;The American taxpayer is tired of states receiving billions of dollars to police fraud and elder abuse and instead using that money for no-show jobs,&#8221; FTC director of public affairs Joe Simonson <a href="https://x.com/SaysSimonson/status/2054564421951795308">said</a>. &#8220;We cannot have a country with entitlements built on fraud and theft. Our most vulnerable are suffering.&#8221;
Vance vowed to investigate home health care in response to The Daily Wire’s “Medicaid Millions” series on Ohio, which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-ohios-home-health-empire-7-buildings-288-medicaid-companies-250-million">showed</a> that just seven buildings in Columbus housed 288 home health care businesses that billed taxpayers more than $250 million. Columbus is home to one of the largest African immigrant populations in the country.
“These shocking allegations, if true, show why the Fraud Task Force’s work is so important. I’m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate,” he posted, sharing a thread from Rosiak detailing the uncovered fraud.
During the pause of new approvals of home health care and hospices funded by Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will audit the home health care system, which is fully funded and administered by the federal government. States with funding from both the federal government and the states administer the Medicaid home health program. 
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-gop-launches-new-task-force-probes-alleged-250b-medicaid-fraud-ohio">tasked</a> Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) with leading a new task force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses. Gill will focus the task force’s efforts on investigating home health care and Medicaid in Ohio in the wake of The Daily Wire&#8217;s reporting. 
“The reports of Ohio’s Medicaid fraud scandal are appalling — and we’re just uncovering the tip of the iceberg of the fraud and swindling of millions of American dollars,&#8221; Gill told The Daily Wire. &#8220;My Task Force is demanding answers and transparency from the Director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid, as we will continue to press those who need to account for their abuse of American taxpayers.”
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Vice President JD Vance Speaks At A Manufacturing Facility In Des Moines, Iowa

Daily Wire Medicaid Investigation Triggers A $1.4 BILLION Spending Freeze

Medicare

Trump Administration

This is part four of &#8220;Medicaid Millions,” a Daily Wire series exposing billions of dollars in dubious “personal services” payments where people are paid to spend time with their own relatives.
***
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s Medicaid has paid more than $5 million to a company that says it sends helpers to the homes of the elderly – even though the company’s president had a daycare shut down because of signs it was billing for nonexistent children, and her husband has a felony conviction for billing the government for nonexistent elder services.
The tale raises questions about what, if any, effort the government makes to ensure it isn’t being tricked by Medicaid providers who bill the government vast sums.
Omega Healthcare Services is based in a black, windowless building in Columbus, a city that boasts one of the largest African immigrant populations in the country and also gets the bulk of the state’s Medicaid dollars. When The Daily Wire visited its office during business hours, the door was locked and no one was there.
Yet Omega was <a href="https://npidb.org/organizations/agencies/home-health_251e00000x/1033712484.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">certified</a> to begin receiving Medicaid dollars for &#8220;home health&#8221; in November 2020. According to Ohio spending records, the state paid the firm <a href="https://checkbook.ohio.gov/State/Resources/PayeeSearch.aspx?search=OMEGA%20HEALTHCARE%20SERVICES,%20LLC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$5.7 million</a> beginning in June 2020 and as recently as this month.
<div id="attachment_1094215" style="width: 840px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1094215" class="wp-image-1094215 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-12-at-9.21.49-PM.png" alt="" width="830" height="538" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-12-at-9.21.49-PM.png 830w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-12-at-9.21.49-PM-300x194.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-12-at-9.21.49-PM-768x498.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px" />The Daily Wire</div>
Who runs this lucrative home health business? Business records <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202014001324" target="_blank" rel="noopener">show</a> it’s registered to Esther Acheampong, who a decade ago had a daycare in Wisconsin called Kids Campus CDC <a href="https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/wishares/terminated-providers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shut down</a> because it was &#8220;unable to provide investigators with requested attendance records.&#8221;
Sharing the same office is an accounting firm called Scabeda registered to Esther and her husband, Robert Acheampong.
In 2005, Robert Acheampong pleaded guilty to <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599.2.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">felony theft of public money</a> in federal court, after stealing $19,000 from the IRS and a priest in a scheme that mirrors what fraudulent home health companies are known to do.
He falsely claimed to represent a “community development” nonprofit in order to seek a federal grant for &#8220;tax counseling for the elderly.&#8221; He falsely claimed that 25 volunteers filed taxes for 1,000 elderly people, and billed the government for $16,000 in expenses.
He <a href="https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/acc.ohio.gov/Website%20Materials/About%20Us/Compliance/Disciplinary_Spreadsheet.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lost</a> his accounting license and received four months house arrest and three years of probation. His probation was extended to 2010 after he incurred <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599.3.0_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another felony</a> conviction, for failing to support his own children.
The feds put a $15,000 lien against him, but he simply never paid it – even as his wife, an immigrant from Ghana, found an extraordinarily successful business venture in billing the government for visits to the elderly.
In December 2024, the government <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599/gov.uscourts.ohsd.104599.6.0_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gave up</a> on trying to collect what it was owed, saying the &#8220;collection period for the criminal monetary penalties… has expired.&#8221; Shortly prior, records show the Acheampongs <a href="https://delaware-auditor-ohio.manatron.com/Property.aspx?mpropertynumber=318-130-02-007-000&amp;mtab=property&amp;p=31813002007000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bought</a> an upscale home in the tony suburb of Lewis Center.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1093851" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-871x576.jpeg" alt="" width="871" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-871x576.jpeg 871w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-300x198.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-768x508.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-1536x1016.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega-sign-2048x1354.jpeg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 871px) 100vw, 871px" /></div>
In April 2025, Ohio <a href="https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/v1751395777/acc.ohio.gov/Board%20Meeting%20Materials/Signed%20Meeting%20Minutes/2025%20Meetings/Apr_25_2025_ABO_Meeting_Minutes_-_signed.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reinstated</a> his accounting license. Scabeda’s sign advertises advice on “advanced taxation” and boasts of securing “$25 MILLION IN LOANS.” Scabeda itself received $25,000 in forgivable <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_8377448904_073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID loans</a>.
Robert Acheampong’s multiple felonies were just one of a slew of red flags that the Ohio Department of Medicaid could have caught when it approved Omega Healthcare Services to operate in the “home health” field, a program known to be highly vulnerable to fraud.
Omega’s LLC paperwork filed in May 2020 didn’t list Robert’s name; it <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202014001324" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed</a> Esther and a white American teenager who lived more than two hours away.
Public records show the teen is the son of Paul G. A. Kasapis, who had just gotten out of federal prison for <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndoh/pr/canton-man-sentenced-more-year-prison-money-laundering-and-tax-violations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tax fraud</a> and money laundering convictions tied to an illegal casino he was running out of a bowling alley. The Omega paperwork was filed three days after the teen turned 18. Scabeda’s LLC paperwork was <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202012100706" target="_blank" rel="noopener">updated</a> in the teen’s name on the same day.
The Ohio Department of Medicaid didn’t seem to find it odd that a teenager from Canton was teaming up with a woman from Ghana on a Medicaid business. The Daily Wire did. When we reached out, we got part of the story from his mother.
Debbie Kasapis said Robert Acheampong was the accountant, apparently working despite his revoked license, who filed the fraudulent tax returns concealing millions of dollars for her now ex-husband.
After Paul was released from prison, she found that they were still working together.
&#8220;Something came to the bowling alley for a trucking company, and it had Paul&#8217;s address and a Columbus phone number,&#8221; she explained. &#8220;I dialed the phone number&#8230; it came up Robert Acheampong.&#8221;
She was shocked. Worse, they were using her son&#8217;s name: “I can guarantee you, if my kid&#8217;s name is on it, my kid doesn&#8217;t know&#8230; I don&#8217;t think my son is quite aware of how much his dad is using his name,” Debbie said, adding that she was surprised he was able to get government money.
“It just seems like nobody’s minding the store,” she said of government oversight.
Paul Kasapis owes more than $500,000 in restitution to the IRS, but Debbie suspects he’s hiding money. Some of those assets might be in Robert’s name.
On April 4, 2025, the Kasapises’ divorce was finalized. The next day, a company called Genesis Training Center LLC was created. The <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202509304792" target="_blank" rel="noopener">articles of incorporation</a> were signed only by Robert and Esther Acheampong. But the paperwork was sent to Paul Kasapis’s bowling alley.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1093857" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year-1024x514.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="514" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year-1024x514.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year-300x151.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year-768x386.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year-1536x771.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/omega_payments_by_year.jpg 1641w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
In March 2020, a company called <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202008701028" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bullet Logistics</a> was created in the name of the then-17-year old son. After the divorce was finalized, it was <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202534601320" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amended</a> to list the elder Kasapis. Scabeda Group’s online account was used to make that change.
In September 2021, Robert and Esther <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202026502922" target="_blank" rel="noopener">created</a> Omega 1 Logistics Inc. Two years later, Kasapis, the convicted money launderer, created <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202325602098" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Omega 1 Log LLC</a>, a name that most people would assume was the same company simply abbreviated, but which was actually a different legal entity.
Asked about the near identical name of Acheampong’s trucking company, the elder Kasapis said, “Why is that weird?” He told The Daily Wire he hired Acheampong to create the bowling alley LLC, but his son was &#8220;not at all&#8221; involved in any businesses, and he didn&#8217;t know why his name appeared.
Esther Acheampong declined to comment. Robert Acheampong did not answer repeated phone calls.
The Acheampongs are tied to several businesses, including a mortgage bank called the <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/201923403164" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Omega Mortgage Banc Corporation</a>, which listed their own then-17-year-old son as a partner.
Their business filings regularly involve individuals billing the government large amounts of money. In October 2020, Robert was named as the sole incorporator of <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/202029602104" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alert Security Agency</a>, but the company was created using a Secretary of State account linked to an address belonging to Dr. Yaw Ayesu-Offei, who founded numerous Medicaid companies, including one that billed $4.7 million.
Scabeda itself was originally <a href="https://bizimage.ohiosos.gov/api/image/pdf/201907902270" target="_blank" rel="noopener">created</a> using the online account of Al Hassan Mansaray, the founder of the High Tech Learning Center, Inc. The learning center’s listed address is an apartment, and its website consisted of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190906053220/http://www.hlcoh.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stock photos</a>, but it got <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_1083949007_073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$30,000</a> in COVID money.
<h3>Cat and mouse</h3>
Ohio spent $1 billion on home health in 2024, paid overwhelmingly with federal money. How many of the 3,700 home health LLCs incorporated in Ohio have similar stories to the Acheampongs?
To illustrate how common it has become for people in some communities to bill the government for such work, the Acheampong home health care business is not even the only multi-million dollar business within its office building. The windowless black box – a different one than the buildings mentioned in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-ohios-home-health-empire-7-buildings-288-medicaid-companies-250-million?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=Investigation&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Inside+Ohio%E2%80%99s+Home+Health+Empire%3A+7+Buildings%2C+288+Medicaid+Companies%2C+%24250+Million">previous installment</a> of this series – is full of companies that bill the government.
Down the hall is All Nation Home Health Care, which collected $7.5 million since 2018. Across the corridor is Confidential Health Services LLC, which fittingly had its windows blacked out. Ohio state records report paying it <a href="https://checkbook.ohio.gov/State/Resources/PayeeSearch.aspx?search=CONFIDENTIAL%20HEALTH%20SERVICES%20LLC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.8 million</a>, and it got $280,000 in <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=244f6f780843f8cdd9724ecd6a03b566" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID money</a>.
More than 15% of all “home health” spending in Ohio takes place in four square miles around northeast Columbus, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-investigation-ignites-imminent-crackdown-on-medicaid-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the state auditor. The city houses one of the largest African immigrant communities in the country, many based in the same neighborhood where home health has become so prevalent.
As part of this investigative series on Medicaid spending, The Daily Wire reviewed scores of companies in Columbus and found them often connected to people with red flags in their background that raise questions about waste, fraud, and abuse in the massive government program.
Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine has said that “Ohio has extensive oversight mechanisms in place” to root out fraud and abuse.
Parker Thayer, an investigator for the Capital Research Center, contributed reporting.
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Medicaid Millions Part 4

He Was Convicted For Defrauding The Government. Now Medicaid Pays His Wife Millions.

Ohio

Special Reporting

This article is on Ohio&#8217;s response to “Medicaid Millions,” a Daily Wire series exposing billions of dollars in dubious “personal services” payments where people are paid to spend time with their own family.
***
Ohio says it has safeguards in place to cut down on fraud and abuse of Medicaid home health care, but one of the biggest tools to verify care is actually taking place has been rendered useless.
The Daily Wire’s investigation of the multi-billion dollar a year Medicaid industry in Ohio has raised concerns about abuse of a program in which people are paid to visit the homes of elderly poor people and provide “cooking,” “cleaning,” and other non-medical services that even include “companionship.”
In response to those concerns, the Ohio Department of Medicaid said it is “aware of concerns involving home health care activity” in Columbus, and “has been actively investigating these matters since prior to the publication of The Daily Wire series.” It touted an “extensive set of safeguards&#8221; in place to ensure aides are actually going to homes.
The key component is &#8220;mandatory electronic visit verification capturing date, time, and service location,&#8221; a feature that is required by federal law. But Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s administration inserted massive loopholes including making the verification optional.
The 21st Century Cures Act, passed by Congress in 2016, <a href="https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/home-community-based-services/home-community-based-services-guidance-additional-resources/electronic-visit-verification" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mandated</a> that states require electronic visit verification, or EVV, by January 2020 for the riskiest category of “personal services” – non-medical services like cooking and cleaning – and by January 2023 for in-home nursing. Yet for years, Ohio simply paid providers even if they didn’t submit any electronic evidence, according to a <a href="https://ohioauditor.gov/Auditsearch/Reports/2024/117_Electronic_Visit_Verification_Report_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 audit</a> by Auditor of State Keith Faber.
Faber’s audit, examining payments in 2022, found that 44% of personal services claims had no electronic verification. The situation was similar for home nursing. “This resulted in approximately $1.1 billion in claims not supported by an EVV visit,&#8221; the audit found.
The audit said if the state has an electronic validation system, then using it should be a &#8220;condition of payment.&#8221; A spokeswoman for the Ohio Medicaid Department, Stephanie O’Grady, told The Daily Wire that this was done in March 2025.
But shortly before EVV was made mandatory, it was neutered as a fraud prevention tool. The most important feature – GPS coordinates captured by an electronic device – was made optional and defaulted to “off.”
“Effective July 1, 2024, GPS functionality within any EVV application or device may only be activated with the signed consent of the individual receiving services — valid for one year and revocable at any time,” O’Grady said. “The approach allows the person receiving care to make an informed decision related to privacy protections for individuals receiving home and community-based services.”
O&#8217;Grady disclosed to The Daily Wire that GPS is turned off for nearly half of home visits, with reliable coordinates present in only 53% of electronic records.
The patient was also supposed to sign their name to show that the patient and aide were actually together, but that, too, was removed in 2024, Faber’s audit flagged.
Earlier this year, Ohio’s attorney general Dave Yost, whose office is tasked with policing Medicaid fraud, testified that the rollback of safeguards made his job difficult.
“Until about a year ago [GPS] was required, now it&#8217;s optional,” he <a href="https://www.ohiochannel.org/programs/ohio-house-medicaid-committee-3-24-2026-joint-meeting-of-medicaid-committees" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told legislators in March</a>. “I do not know for the life of me why it went away, but I respectfully ask you to put in statute where no vendor, no bureaucrat can object to legitimate monitoring.”
“While we had the GPS, you could see where the person was, they had to drive to the house of the person they were providing services for, you could see how long they were there. That record makes it much harder to do the fake billing where they say they went to five houses but really sat at home,” he said.
Ohio state lawmaker Josh Williams, a Republican from Toledo, says there was no reason why the recipient of a government service would object, or be able to object, to the government verifying that the person being paid by the government to help him actually showed up.
“It seems like the DeWine administration continues to protect the bad actors. And I&#8217;m frustrated as a legislator, I&#8217;m frustrated as a taxpayer. I&#8217;m frustrated because I don&#8217;t think we should be providing protection for these individuals,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. “We&#8217;re not checking any of your personal information. We&#8217;re making sure that the person that is assigned to your case is actually going to your residence.&#8221;
“You want to be a Medicaid provider in the state of Ohio for home health care aid, we should be able to track your location data during the times in which you&#8217;re asking for payment,” he added.
He said that a common fraud scheme involves a patient and caregiver colluding to have the government pay for nonexistent work — in which case the patient could now simply refuse GPS verification of the caregiver’s presence.
“You have family members going to provide services to an elderly individual, and on many occasions, they&#8217;re not even showing up, but they&#8217;re getting paid. That family member is not going to report their nephew or their cousin or their niece for not showing up. That&#8217;s part of a widespread, broad fraud that we&#8217;re seeing,” he said.
Williams has introduced a <a href="https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/hb795" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a> to make GPS mandatory again. But even then, it appears that GPS data could easily be faked.
Faber’s audit said that Ohio spent $146 million contracting with Sandata, a company that produces EVV devices and software, resulting in Ohio providers being able to use Sandata’s software for free. Nonetheless, the state allows home care providers to use their <a href="https://medicaid.ohio.gov/resources-for-providers/special-programs-and-initiatives/electronic-visit-verification" target="_blank" rel="noopener">own software</a> instead, potentially including software that simply transmits fake coordinates rather than ones coming straight from a mobile device’s sensors.
The vulnerabilities don’t end there. Ohio also permits the electronic records to be manually adjusted. In 2022, “34 percent of all EVV entries were manually adjusted,” Faber’s audit found.
Additionally, ten percent of aides are exempt from EVV because they live with the patient, often a family member, O’Grady said.
Yost, who resigned as attorney general last week for a job in the private sector, said in his testimony that in addition to DeWine’s rules, Ohio laws also make it difficult to prove and punish Medicaid fraud.
The attorney general’s Medicaid fraud unit isn’t authorized to use subpoenas to gather information, he said. If someone is actually investigated, charged, and convicted, their punishment will be light because Medicaid fraud is “capped as being less serious than other theft, as a third degree felony,” he said.
<h3>Red state blues</h3>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1092743" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-1024x480.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="480" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-1024x480.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-300x141.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-768x360.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-1536x720.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/ohio-hhc-chart-2048x959.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
The Medicaid scandal in Ohio has exploded under an all-Republican leadership. In fact, the historical dollar amounts in this series, relying on data through 2024, likely understate the ongoing cost, because DeWine drastically increased the pay rate for home health providers in 2024.
The increases took effect as “part of Governor Mike DeWine’s commitment to making sure every Ohioan receives quality care and that providers receive support to continue delivering the highest level of care for Ohio’s residents,” a press release <a href="https://ohiohcbs.pcgus.com/news/important-information-fee-for-service-reimbursement-rate-increases" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “The rate increases are historic in nature, totaling approximately $3.4 billion per year,” including home health and other Medicaid spending.
DeWine has been accused of being soft on fraud, particularly after a spokesman once called fraud in the state&#8217;s Somali hotspots “the <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/01/14/ohio-gov-mike-dewine-responds-to-fraud-concerns/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cost of doing business</a>.”
Last week, Vivek Ramaswamy secured the Republican nomination to replace DeWine next year. Responding to The Daily Wire’s reporting, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMXQjWxVQTw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that states have “turned a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMXQjWxVQTw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blind eye</a> to this level of rampant fraud” despite the fact that “in a modern era of AI, you have a toolkit that allows you to detect aberrant abnormalities.”
That’s partly because of an incentive issue with how Medicaid is set up, he said. Medicaid is run by the states, but is largely paid for by the federal government. That means it’s up to states to stop waste and fraud, but they don’t always have a strong financial motivation to do so, because it would decrease federal dollars to the state.
Ohio’s Medicaid program is set to be in the hole <a href="https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/ohio-medicaid-projected-to-lose-33b-over-next-decade/article_2f369df5-0a08-4819-a490-ac1b46612b95.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$33 billion</a> over the next few years due to federal changes aimed at stopping states from gaming the numbers to offload even more of the burden to the feds.
Vice President <a href="https://x.com/JDVance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JD Vance</a>, also from Ohio, said in response to The Daily Wire’s series: “I’m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate.”
Ramaswamy noted that there is “uppercase F fraud, and also lowercase F fraud, which may be technically legal but doesn’t comport with anyone’s sense of who should get these dollars.” Those cases could necessitate changes in law or policy to stop the bleeding.
Aggressive Medicaid “waiver” programs such as those the feds have allowed Minnesota and Ohio to run are particularly vulnerable to abuse, and have exploded in usage. Medicaid takes up nearly half of Ohio’s general revenue fund, and spending has doubled in recent years.
Yet even as the red flags are hard to ignore — the percentage of people claiming to be autistic is exploding the dubious levels, for example — there has been aggressive, almost blatant pushback against using common and affordable technology to provide basic safeguards.
Nationally, a group called “<a href="https://www.stopevv.com/media-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stop EVV</a>” launched a “media toolkit” showing pictures of disabled people holding signs with messages like, “I’M THE EMPLOYER. IT IS MY RIGHT TO SCHEDULE, SUPERVISE &amp; SIGN MY EMPLOYEE’S TIMESHEET.” The site pictured a bald eagle and American flag and called stopping GPS tracking a “civil rights” issue.
Ohio’s Department of Medicaid says that “all allegations of fraud are investigated,” and further that many of the companies identified by The Daily Wire “are subject to ongoing investigation” by the state. It said it is unable to comment on those investigations.
But Faber, the auditor — who is running for attorney general — has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-investigation-ignites-imminent-crackdown-on-medicaid-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warning</a> of abuse that mirrors The Daily Wire’s findings. He recently told the legislature that 38% of Ohio home health spending was in Franklin County, and that of that, 41% – or more than 15% of all home health care spending in the state — is spent in a four mile radius.
Faber’s audit found that in 2022, there were 2,479 home health companies in Ohio, which were paid $1.8 billion. That means 10% of all home health companies in the state are located in the seven buildings owned by one landlord in Columbus&#8217;s Somali neighborhood, which was highlighted in our <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-ohios-home-health-empire-7-buildings-288-medicaid-companies-250-million">second installment</a>.
The data analyzed by the Daily Wire, finding a quarter billion dollars to companies in seven buildings, covered from 2018 to 2024. It understates the total because data for smaller companies is not available for privacy reasons.
Parker Thayer, an investigator for the Capital Research Center, contributed reporting.
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J.D. Vance/Mike DeWine

Ohio Says Safeguards Exist To Stop Medicaid Fraud, But Admits Massive Loophole

J.D. Vance

Vivek Ramaswamy

While hardworking Americans juggle grocery bills and sky-high property taxes, Ohio’s Medicaid money machine was apparently having a pretty great run.
Now Republican Ohio gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy says it is time to slam the brakes.
After Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak exposed what critics are calling a sprawling Medicaid cash pipeline operating across Ohio, Ramaswamy is now calling for prosecutions, taxpayer savings, and a crackdown on abuse inside the system.
“Common sense policies to say we&#8217;re respecting the rule of law,” Ramaswamy said on &#8216;Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany.&#8217; “Lawbreakers ought to be prosecuted. We should not apologize for that.”
The comments come after Rosiak uncovered a bizarre web of Medicaid-linked companies across Ohio, including one Columbus address tied to 94 separate businesses that reportedly billed taxpayers more than $66 million.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
The taxpayer is not a piggy bank to be bilked. We will comprehensively review Ohio’s $40BN+ Medicaid expenditures and aggressively prosecute illegal abuses of the program. That starts in early 2027 &amp; we won’t hold back. <a href="https://t.co/MFRAU4B69z">pic.twitter.com/MFRAU4B69z</a>
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) <a href="https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/2053147627932577793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The investigation blew the lid off some of the offices appearing practically deserted, with covered windows, generic “Home Health LLC” names, and little visible evidence that actual operations were taking place inside.
The reporting zeroed in on Ohio’s exploding Medicaid-funded home healthcare system, where loosely defined “homemaking” services like cooking and cleaning can generate massive taxpayer-funded payouts with limited oversight.
Rosiak’s investigation also highlighted how Columbus, home to one of the nation’s largest Somali immigrant populations, has seen entire neighborhoods flooded with Medicaid-billing home healthcare businesses as operators realized the government would pay people to provide “companionship” and care services to family members inside private homes.
Ramaswamy argued the issue goes far beyond bureaucratic waste.
To him, it is directly connected to why taxpayers feel squeezed in the first place.
“But these are taxpayer dollars that belong in the hands of citizens,” he said. “Property taxes in the state have gotten too high.”
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The Ohio Republican also connected the Medicaid controversy to his broader push to slash taxes across the state if elected governor this November.
“Income taxes in certain states are zero income tax,” Ramaswamy said. “I want Ohio to be such a zero income tax state as well, but that means we&#8217;re going to have to take a look at every other area of savings for the taxpayer.”
Rosiak’s reporting painted a picture not just of isolated fraud, but of an entire taxpayer-funded ecosystem where oversight appears weak, accountability appears scarce, and huge amounts of public money are flowing through companies that investigators say often raise obvious red flags.
One especially eye-popping detail involved a landlord whose buildings reportedly housed hundreds of Medicaid-related businesses billing the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars.
The investigation also highlighted how difficult the system can be to verify in practice. In some cases, family members are reportedly paid through Medicaid programs to “care” for relatives at home, with little meaningful oversight over whether services are actually being rendered.

Vivek_Money_Trail

The Reckoning Vivek Is Vowing After DW Exposed Medicaid Money Trail

This is the third part of “Medicaid Millions,” a Daily Wire series exposing billions of dollars in dubious “personal services” payments where people are paid to spend time with their own family.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — After the federal government approved a waiver allowing Ohio to expand Medicaid by paying housekeepers to spend time at elderly people’s houses to help with tasks like <a href="https://aging.ohio.gov/care-and-living/get-help/home-and-community-care/passport-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“homemaking” and “chore services,”</a> taxpayers across the country footed a shocking $2.5 billion worth of bills between 2018 and 2024, according to a trove of Medicaid data released for the first time by the Trump administration.
The demand for free home care was so high in Ohio that taxpayers spent more on that “personal services” category, Medicaid’s term for non-medical in-home help, than any other outpatient service. The program allows for people who aren’t medical professionals to get paid by the government for work done inside private residences, where what was performed, and even whether anything was done, is essentially unverifiable.
The state’s largest outpatient Medicaid category therefore relies on trust. So who’s facilitating payments from the government?
The Daily Wire spent weeks analyzing the Medicaid data released by the Trump administration as part of its effort to weed out wasteful government spending. I went to Ohio, and found clusters of home healthcare providers that bill the government millions of dollars in desolate buildings filled with empty offices.
At 1415 East Dublin Granville Road, one of the Columbus buildings we visited in our investigation, we found True Home Healthcare LLC.
All that appeared on its door was a tattered piece of printer paper that read, “SORRY WE MISSED YOU, OUT FOR A QUICK BREAK.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1090927 size-medium" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign-300x224.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="224" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign-300x224.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign-770x576.jpg 770w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign-768x575.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign-1536x1149.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-sign.jpg 1942w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></div>
In Medicaid records, the owner is listed Mamusu Kanu. According to a review of public records, Kanu has had a slew of criminal convictions, including for theft, assault, and DUI, as well as several civil judgments and tax liens. Kanu was charged with felony aggravated assault in Virginia, and convicted of theft in Columbus in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The company True Home Healthcare LLC received $100,000 in December 2023 alone off just 15 patients, according to our analysis of federal spending data.
In a phone interview, Mamusu Kanu, who goes by “Sue,” denied that she had a criminal record, before declaring: “Even if I do, it doesn&#8217;t have anything to do with nobody. They [Medicaid] certify you before you do anything.&#8221;
Incorporation documents for True Home Healthcare don’t list Kanu, but rather a man named Alieu Conteh. The couple are married and have been partners in crime for decades. On December 12, 2004, both Kanu and Conteh were charged with theft in Columbus. They previously lived in Alexandria, Virginia, where they stiffed multiple landlords. Court records show the couple faced <a href="https://trellis.law/doc/58696516/judgment-entry-decree-foreclosure-court-finds-that-if-sums-found-due-are-not-fully-paid-within-three-3-days-equity-redemption-in-said-real-estate-shall-be-sold?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">foreclosure</a> in Columbus immediately before opening their Medicaid business.
Two months. Millions of documents. A full investigative team. That’s what this story required. Most outlets can’t afford work like this, which is why it doesn’t happen. We’ve chosen to make it happen. <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/fight/?utm_campaign=missional&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=article&amp;utm_content=medicaid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Support more of it by becoming a member of Daily Wire.</a>
In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, court records show Conteh has faced <a href="https://www.fcmcclerk.com/case/search/results" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25 charges</a>. He’s had additional convictions elsewhere, including for endangering children.
Conteh acknowledged his criminal history, but said it didn’t interfere with his ability to do business with Medicaid.
&#8220;Yes, I do have a lot of records,” Conteh told The Daily Wire. “I was just too dumb I didn&#8217;t even know what is law.”
“We came up to do business. I put in my application with the government, Medicaid, Medicare, they check. They see all my history &#8230; and they approved the business to operate,” Conteh said. “Do you want to tell me I don&#8217;t have rights to own a business?&#8221;
Conteh had a roster of aliases that he would give to the police, such as Osman Kanu and Gbssay Gbla, leading to multiple fraud convictions. “That way I cannot be arrested when I knew I was driving with a suspended license,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire.
Records confirm that Conteh’s criminal past was not a problem with licensing. In 2012, Ohio’s Board of Nursing permitted Conteh to become a nurse under a probationary agreement that acknowledged his repeated fraud and violent tendencies:
“In 2007, Mr. Conteh was convicted of one (1) amended misdemeanor count of Disorderly Conduct that stemmed from him grabbing and striking an adult female family member,” the government document states, also referencing “retail theft,” “falsification,” and “providing a false name/information to a police officer.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1090935" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/nursing-ss.jpg" alt="" width="676" height="812" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/nursing-ss.jpg 676w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/nursing-ss-250x300.jpg 250w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/nursing-ss-480x576.jpg 480w" sizes=" (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px" /></div>
The probationary license was contingent on his meeting certain terms, including being honest, disclosing his employers to the nursing board, and refraining from crimes. He did none of those things.
He was convicted of DUIs in September 2014 and November 2014. When he submitted an application to renew his nursing license in 2016, he falsely said he had not been convicted of any crimes, and that he was unemployed, even though he was in fact working as a nurse. His license was suspended in July 2017.
In September 2017, Conteh told the nursing board he “intended to seek alcohol dependency treatment and regretted his actions.” Just eight days later, he was arrested for DUI yet again. Conteh also “reported having a prior history of Cocaine use,” a January 2018 deal with the nursing board said.
The deal said his license would be suspended through at least January 2019, and required him to submit to drug and alcohol tests — which he then failed, claiming it was a “momentary relapse.” In January 2020, he was reinstated as a nurse, subject to permanent limits.
“Unless otherwise approved in advance by the Board or its designee, Mr. Conteh shall not practice nursing as a licensed practical nurse (1) for agencies providing home care in the patient’s residence&#8221; or “where the job duties or requirements involve financial activity.”
Nonetheless, Conteh and his wife created their own company, one that would involve unsupervised and unverifiable home visits, and rely on their honesty to accurately bill the government.
True Home Healthcare was certified as a Medicaid provider in April 2021; between May 2021 and October 2024, it billed taxpayers $936,000. It had 12 customers when it opened its doors, and 12 customers in October 2024, the last month for which data is available, according to the HHS data.
<div id="attachment_1090939" style="width: 1006px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1090939" class="size-full wp-image-1090939" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-chart.jpg" alt="" width="996" height="460" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-chart.jpg 996w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-chart-300x139.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/true-home-chart-768x355.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 996px) 100vw, 996px" />Monthly Medicaid payments to True Home Healthcare</div>
Conteh suggested he had not notified the nursing board that he was working in home health, and said he doesn’t think he has to.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t work for home healthcare,” Conteh said. “I own one.&#8221;
He said he neither dealt with finances or patients. &#8220;My role, I sit in the office,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire.
Asked how he finds the clients and whether he advertises, Conteh said that’s unnecessary.
&#8220;That is a very unnecessary question,” he said. “The patient just comes.”
&#8220;How do we as taxpayers know that they&#8217;re real? The database says you got $100,000 in a single month,” I asked.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t have an answer for you,&#8221; he said. He then issued vague threats, saying, &#8220;You still asking some questions that are very irrelevant and unnecessary. I already know who you are, your parents, and so forth.&#8221;
After I asked why Alieu Conteh said he mentioned my parents, he hung up, then called back and said he had not said that, but instead said the word &#8220;apparently.&#8221; Moments later, a woman who would not identify herself called from a different number and made clear that was a lie. &#8220;I&#8217;m gonna have to handle you a different way &#8230; let me tell you what will happen,&#8221; she said, before rattling off names of the reporter’s loved ones.
Kanu then called back and said, despite Medicaid records showing it using the billing code for “personal services” like homemaking, the company actually provided nursing service, installing intensive medical equipment like ventilators, and had closer to 40 Medicaid patients, significantly more than are shown in records.
The Daily Wire asked the Ohio Department of Medicaid about any possible discrepancy in the data. After nine days, the department pointed The Daily Wire to the federal government — which simply gathers the information from the states.
The couple that has repeatedly harmed people&#8217;s physical health and committed fraud is getting rich off of your money.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1090689" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/1425-1.gif" alt="" width="760" height="453" /></div>
Owners of Medicaid companies that share True Home Healthcare’s building
This is just what unfurled behind a single door in the seemingly endless labyrinth of home healthcare companies billing Medicaid millions in Columbus.
Conteh is not even the only person with his last name, one of the <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/last-name-meaning/conteh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">most common</a> in the Western African nation of Sierra Leone, taking advantage of the industry in Columbus.
Shortly before Alieu Conteh’s True Home Healthcare began billing Medicaid, a man named Alfred Conteh was busted for Medicaid fraud in Columbus and banned from the program.
In May 2020, Alfred was caught “submitting false documentation of home health services provided to Medicaid beneficiaries on dates when video surveillance confirmed he was not physically present at the homes of the beneficiaries in question,” the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/dab/decisions/alj-decisions/2023/alj-cr6343/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
He was charged in Franklin County Municipal Court in April 2022, and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in August 2022.
The punishment for Medicaid fraud is so lenient that it provides little deterrent. Alfred Conteh was only required to reimburse for charges that video conclusively proved he could not have provided ($607) while taking his word for the rest. His criminal case no longer appears in Ohio court records, which a court clerk said suggests it was expunged. The Ohio nursing board let him keep his license.
The only significant punishment is being placed on Medicaid’s Exclusions list for five years, preventing him from billing more.
Is Alfred Conteh related to Allieu Conteh, or is bilking Medicaid simply that common among immigrants from Sierra Leone? It’s hard for the government, or anyone else, to know for sure.
But with thousands of home health care companies, constantly being created and decommissioned, and whose LLC partners are not always public or seem to be placed in relatives’ names, that’s easy enough to get around.
Alfred Conteh has now moved to Alexandria, Virginia, the same city where Sue and Alieu lived, records show. He also shared a home with someone with the last name of Gbla — one of Alieu’s aliases. Allieu denied any relation.
Following earlier installments in this Daily Wire series,  <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jd-vance-eyes-fraud-probe-inspired-by-daily-wire-investigation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vice President JD Vance</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ramaswamy-says-he-will-aggressively-prosecute-kind-of-fraud-uncovered-by-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vivek Ramaswamy</a>, now Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, both vowed to investigate potential fraud in the state.
Ohio’s current Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has said he has no reason to believe there’s any unaddressed fraud in the state, and stated in response to this investigation that “Ohio has extensive oversight mechanisms in place.”
Parker Thayer, an investigator for the Capital Research Center, contributed reporting.
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medicaid_millions-article_3_main_art-4k_720

Meet The Convicted Fraudster Running A Million Dollar Medicaid Business

Donald Trump

Ohio-Somali-v4

Inside Ohio’s Home Health Empire: 7 Buildings, 288 Medicaid Companies, $250 Million

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Just before the Department of Government Efficiency closed its doors, it made a quiet move that may end up as its most lasting impact on the federal deficit.
DOGE <a href="https://opendata.hhs.gov/datasets/medicaid-provider-spending/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published a massive trove of data</a> in February that, for the first time, lets the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for. For decades, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy. One of the largest government programs was a black box.
I’ve spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter.
This is the first part of &#8220;Medicaid Millions,” a Daily Wire series exposing billions of dollars in dubious “personal services” payments where people are paid to spend time with their own family.
I set my sights on Ohio, which like Minnesota, has been granted <a href="https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/section-1115-demo/demonstration-and-waiver-list/Waiver-Descript-Factsheet/OH#0198" target="_blank" rel="noopener">waivers</a> to expand Medicaid well beyond its original purpose. Under the guise of health care, Ohio pays people to go to Medicaid beneficiaries’ homes to perform “homemaking” and “chores” like cooking and cleaning. The people performing these “personal services” tasks don’t even have to be health care workers — and in many cases, are actually relatives of the Medicaid recipient.
According to a Daily Wire data analysis, Ohio spent a billion dollars on home health care in 2024, the last year for which data is available.
Since the services are performed inside private residences, there is no way to know whether the workers went at all, or what they&#8217;re actually doing in exchange for taxpayer funds. An infinite number of small black boxes inside a black box. Multiple signs said the service provided, and billed to the government, was sometimes just “companionship &amp; conversation.”
As people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families, northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid. And Columbus, a city with the second largest Somali population in the country, has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.
“Well if the government is going to pay you to do it,” one home health operator told me. “People see it as lucrative, so they just jump on it.”
The new welfare queens aren’t the recipients whose low incomes qualify them for poverty programs. They’re the companies getting rich off them.
<div id="attachment_1088861" style="width: 640px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1088861" class="wp-image-1088861" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard-1024x548.jpg" alt="A billboard in Columbus / Luke Rosiak" width="630" height="337" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard-1024x548.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard-300x161.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard-768x411.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard-1536x823.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/billboard.jpg 1813w" sizes=" (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" />A billboard in Columbus / Luke Rosiak</div>
Driving down Cleveland Avenue, in less than 40 seconds, you come across endless home health companies. Capital Home Health; Continental Home Health; Dynamic Home Healthcare; Ohio Senior Home Healthcare. Entire buildings throughout the city are filled entirely with what appear to be identical businesses.
The enormous complex pictured below is 6161 Busch Boulevard. Its lack of windows would be a problem for most office buildings, but there is almost no one in this one. What’s inside is 94 different companies signed up to bill Medicaid, each with a tiny office, often marked with a sheet of paper proclaiming some generic company name ending in “Home Health LLC” — and sometimes another piece of paper claiming the employees had just stepped out for a break.
This building alone billed taxpayers $66 million in the span of a few years, the records show.
<div id="attachment_1088839" style="width: 640px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1088839" class="wp-image-1088839" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/unnamed-1.jpg" alt="" width="630" height="473" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/unnamed-1.jpg 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/unnamed-1-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" />Luke Rosiak / The Daily Wire</div>
Pick the owner of a Columbus home health care company at random and look him up in public records, and you are likely to go down an endless rabbit hole: years of unpaid taxes and debts, sometimes criminal records, and an astonishing number of LLCs created in other industries, as if the millions they make from Medicaid are just a side gig.
We went down several of those rabbit holes. In the coming days, you&#8217;ll meet:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A politician who founded an $11 million home health care company that he appeared to run part-time — without even mentioning it in his political biography — who funded his campaign with donations from other home health care owners.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A woman who reinvented her janitorial LLC as a &#8220;health&#8221; provider, then billed Medicaid nearly $100,000 the first month.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A landlord who bought airplanes after renting space to hundreds of home health care companies that billed Medicaid a quarter of a billion dollars.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A million-dollar Medicaid business owned by a couple with repeated fraud, violence, and theft convictions.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A man who went to prison for Medicaid fraud but told the government he was too broke to pay restitution, while his neighbors and associates preside over a poverty-program empire.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">An accountant who lost his license for stealing public funds, then opened a $7 million home health company using the address of a convicted money launderer&#8217;s teenage son.</li>
</ul>
These are not business geniuses, nor even people with any training or specialty in the health field. They have often failed at a variety of businesses before suddenly becoming millionaires in home health care.
Sometimes a company will have a full roster of clients in its very first month, making one wonder where the clients come from. The companies don’t have websites or appear to advertise. They can’t stand out from their thousands of rivals based on price, unless they pay kickbacks, because the government pays the same to everyone.
Nearly every owner of home health care companies in Columbus appears to be foreign. They live in a parallel society, where every associate in public records also has a foreign name, and all their business transactions are conducted with other foreigners.
When we asked one what home health care companies did, one man threatened: “Journalists? Who cares? Do you guys pay my bills? I’m going to tell everybody you guys are racist.”
The government cannot be meaningfully monitoring all the people it writes million-dollar checks to in Columbus. They all share combinations of just a few names, like Ahmed Mohamed and Mohamed Ahmed. Documents reviewed by The Daily Wire show individuals will spell their own name multiple different ways within a single document. And many of them list their birthday as January 1, because their birthdates are unknown.
The business model is simple: a 40-year-old Somali immigrant gets paid for spending time with, and maybe cooking for, his own 65-year-old mother. The middleman is one of thousands of &#8220;home health&#8221; firms that have the “NPI” number necessary to bill Medicaid.
The 40-year-old becomes an &#8220;employee&#8221; of that company, but has no clients other than his mother. There is no way to verify whether he actually even provided the &#8220;services&#8221; — unless his own mother is willing to testify against him.
Two months. Millions of documents. A full investigative team. That&#8217;s what this story required. Most outlets can&#8217;t afford work like this, which is why it doesn&#8217;t happen. We&#8217;ve chosen to make it happen. <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/fight/?utm_campaign=missional&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=article&amp;utm_content=medicaid">Support more of it by becoming a member of Daily Wire.</a>
This poverty program is different from things like food stamps, because it has no monetary cap and its extent is decided not by politicians, but by any doctor willing to sign a form saying you could use some help around the house. It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state.
For years, efforts to rein in waste have nibbled around the edges, shaving off a million here and a million there, while skeptics — and liberals — argued that the cost-cutting exercise was pointless because the lion’s share of federal spending was locked up in “non-discretionary” spending like health care.
The implication was that there was no waste in that category, and nothing that could be done about it, even as the nation careened towards insolvency. That premise couldn’t be more wrong.
This blatant waste happened within miles of the Ohio state capitol, where Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, and his appointees run the state. In an age of artificial intelligence, the Medicaid system has seemed disinterested in even the most obvious red flags. Perhaps that’s because it’s largely run by states, but with half or more of the bill being footed by federal taxpayers.
The Trump administration is now turning its sights to Medicaid fraud with a task force led by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Vice President JD Vance. They may want to start with Vance’s home state.
Parker Thayer, an investigator for the Capital Research Center, contributed to this report.
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