Free Republic

Remember when they kept claiming that illegal aliens weren’t draining Medicaid? Not only is it happening, but they’re doing it out in the open. Contra Costa County health officials are urging eligible undocumented residents without health insurance to sign up for Medi-Cal by Dec. 31. This is because starting Jan. 1 the state, in a cost-cutting move, will no longer accept new enrollees to the full-scope plan, which includes everything from check-ups to prescriptions and surgery. There are exceptions for pregnant women and children. Current Medi-Cal participants, including those without residency documents, can remain on the health plan, said Marla...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced a series of proposed regulatory actions to carry out President Donald Trump's executive order directing HHS to end the practice of sex-rejecting procedures on children. During a news conference broadcast on Newsmax, Kennedy said doctors "assume a solemn obligation to protect children," but argued that medical groups have promoted "needless and irreversible" interventions for minors with gender dysphoria. The sweeping proposals are the most significant moves the Trump administration has taken so far to restrict the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical interventions for transgender children....

The fraud in Minnesota's welfare system is so astronomical that, after years of looking, they are still tallying up the damages. But the number runs upwards of $10 billion, and counting. To put that in perspective, that is the yearly GDP of Somalia, to pick a country at random. I would say "unbelievable," but this is Walz's Minnesota. US Attorney’s Office: ‘Half or more’ of $18B billed through state programs tied to fraud https://t.co/ZQhtLwcoCF— David Strom (@DavidStrom) December 18, 2025“The magnitude of fraud in Minnesota cannot be overstated." Gee, I wonder why. As the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced a new...

BREAKING: The FBI has RAIDED a Somali-owned home healthcare provider in Minnesota as the federal government continues uncovering EVEN MORE Medicaid fraud Fraud runs absolutely RAMPANT in the Somali community. START SENDING THEM BACK!

A whistleblower claims that the Somali migrant community in Ohio is also involved in the same sort of massive social services funding fraud being uncovered day-by-day in Minnesota. Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke says that the same sort of theft of public funding seen in Minnesota has been occurring in the Buckeye State for more than a decade, Fox News reports. Cooke also accuses Ohio doctors of “rubber stamping” the fraud by failing to do any due diligence on those who are filing for aid. “They’re just rubberstamping a lot of these. And then that same individual, a week later, that’s...

On the heels of Minnesota’s still-unfolding massive social services fraud scandal, a whistleblower is exposing a similar scheme occurring among the Ohio Somali community, which she says dates back over a decade and totals millions in stolen taxpayer dollars. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Mehek Cooke, an Ohio attorney and conservative commentator, said that "Minnesota was just the tip of the spear." She said that providers within the Ohio Somali community have confided to her that they have been pressured to join in a "massive" Medicaid fraud scheme that involves doctors "rubber stamping" home health care payouts to...

(NewsNation) — Taxpayers in Maine have been bilked out of millions of dollars from the state’s Medicaid program, according to a whistleblower who in an interview with NewsNation likened the case to a burgeoning scandal in Minnesota, where people in the Somali community are accused of defrauding taxpayers of $1 billion meant for social services. The whistleblower, Christopher Bernardini, describes himself as a former “billing guru” of Gateway Community Services — a health services contractor that he says defrauded Maine’s Medicaid program. Bernardini worked for Gateway from May 2018 until April 2025 as a program coordinator. Bernardini alleges that Gateway...

More than 8 in 10 households headed by Somali refugees in the state of Minnesota are on one or more forms of American taxpayer-funded welfare, new data published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals. The data, based on 10 years of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), shows drastic disparities between native-born American households and Somali-born households in Minnesota, where nearly 80,000 residents have Somali ancestry compared to zero who had Somali ancestry in 1990. In particular, the data shows that 81 percent of Minnesota households headed by Somali refugees are on one or more...

As federal health care subsidies barrel toward expiration, a bipartisan group of 35 U.S. lawmakers is calling on leaders in the House and Senate to hold a vote on extending the benefits before the end of next week. The group includes Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction Republican who has been pushing for a renewal of the subsidies, known as the enhanced premium tax credit. The subsidies, passed by Democrats in Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped lower insurance premiums for plans purchased through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but are now slated to expire on Dec. 31. Many Coloradans have...

Diagnosis rates of autism among children have more than tripled over the past 15 years. One reason, which Minnesota’s welfare scandal lays bare with shocking details, is Medicaid fraud and abuse. Medicaid pays healthcare providers big bucks to diagnose and treat children with autism—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a month for a single child. Yet states rarely verify that kids who are diagnosed actually meet the medical criteria for the disorder or that they get appropriate treatment from qualified specialists. The result: Children covered by Medicaid or the government-run Children’s Health Insurance Program are 2.5 times as likely as...

Two Illinois brothers were indicted in a superseding indictment on charges related to a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private health care insurers and for participating in a money laundering conspiracy with the fraud proceeds. According to court documents, Minhaj Feroz Muhammad, 37, and Sufyan Feroze, 35, both of Naperville, owned and controlled, sometimes through straw owners, four clinical laboratories located in Illinois and California. Their scheme allegedly sought to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers by submitting fraudulent claims of over $293 million for COVID-19 laboratory testing services that were never provided, for which insurers paid at least...

After federal judge Indira Talwani sided with Democrats to block the defunding of Big Abortion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for a third time, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America slammed the pro-abortion activism in a statement: “The Democrats and their radical activist judges are desperately seeking to thwart the will of the people and bail out the Big Abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is federal law passed by Congress and signed by the president. Planned Parenthood’s more than 40 closures this year are a reflection not only of taxpayers finally having...

Somalis in Minnesota swindled millions in state Medicaid autism-care programs and sent the cash back to their homeland and its terror groups, investigators say. Breitbart News reported in July that nearly 100 autism clinics in Minnesota were being investigated for fraudulently billing Medicaid for treatment of children supposedly diagnosed with autism, most of it in connection with the rampantly corrupt Somali community around Minneapolis. But the fraud is far more widespread with far more money involved than was previously reported — all of which has been presided over by former Democrat Party vice-presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz. The money paid...

A Minnesota judge is under scrutiny for overturning a $7.2 million fraud conviction of a couple who were found guilty of misappropriating Medicaid funds to support their “lavish lifestyle” of fancy cars and designer duds. Abdifatah Yusuf, 44, was charged in June 2024 and found guilty in August 2025 after he and his wife were accused of stealing millions from Minnesota’s Medicaid program while running a healthcare business out of their home, according to a release from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Yusuf was found guilty of six counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle by a jury, but...

More than 100 rural hospitals have closed in the United States over the last decade, leaving millions of Americans without access to emergency services, testing, inpatient care, and primary care. While these closures have been on the rise in rural America since the 2008-2009 recession, they’ve increased at an alarming pace over the last few years, including at least 18 that closed or converted to an operating model that excludes inpatient care this year alone. Currently, more than 700 rural hospitals are at risk of closing—with 300 at immediate risk of closing—meaning that this distance is likely to widen even...

Glenn Medical Center in Willows closed Oct. 21 after losing “critical access” status for being 3 miles closer to the nearest hospital than rules require. The closure strips emergency care from a poor farming community, eliminates 150 jobs and puts rural residents at risk of preventable deaths. Many other California hospitals also face risks of closing because of federal healthcare cuts affecting cash-strapped rural healthcare systems. These are questions that elected officials and policymakers may soon be confronting in rural communities across California and the nation. Cuts to Medicaid funding and the Affordable Care Act are likely to roll down...

The OIG found that despite prior audits and corrective actions, some of the same issues persist, such as states continuing to make capitation payments to MCOs for enrollees who have passed away. A new report from the Office of Inspector General within the Department of Health and Human Services shows multiple states made improper Medicaid payments to managed care organizations after enrollees had died, which exposes persistent fiscal and oversight problems in the nation’s Medicaid managed-care system.In addition, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said late last week that SNAP benefit payments have been going to deceased people as well.The audit,...

While a number of industrialized nations provide health care through a single payer (government run) system, others have made a public-private system the model they use to guarantee health services to all their citizens. One of those nations is Israel which (as it turns out) has a lot to teach the United States on how to operate a universal health system that is based on both private and public inputs. Israel adopted its national health system in 1995 requiring all permanent residents be provided a standard basket of services including physician care, hospitalization, prescription drugs and dental care for children...

While the shutdown is needless, the Democrats are right to be concerned about healthcare cost coverage. MEDICAID EXPANSION FAIRNESS What I’m thinking of is to slightly and generally increase the state Medicaid expansion share to 5% plus the highest rate of state income tax. That would make Medicaid expansion cheaper for no income tax red states like Florida and Texas, and fairer. Right now, California pays for Medicaid expansion at 10% and rakes in 13% income tax from doctors. To help finance likely Medicaid expansion to states like Texas and Florida, the state Medicaid shares (traditional & expansion) would increase...

The White House will launch a website on Monday night exposing criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, and burglars, who have received taxpayer-funded Medicaid benefits, Breitbart News has learned. The website features mugshots and photos of dozens of illegal aliens convicted of brutal crimes, undercutting Democrat claims that illegal aliens have not received healthcare benefits. The top of the page chronicles the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal aliens convicted of crimes who have received Medicaid benefits, as well as Democrats’ efforts to restore Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens and noncitizens: