The Department of Justice is investigating what it’s calling medical fraud in California.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and Dr. Mehmet Oz held a brief news conference in Los Angeles on Friday to say they’re targeting the state of California over the alleged fraud.
“Him and his team are auditing California programs, California systems, California doctors,” Essayli said.
Dr. Oz, who is now the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, pointed to hospice as one area under investigation.
“The patients don’t realize they’re signing up for hospice, so they’re giving up their medical ability to take care of themselves. They’re moving outside the health care system, where doctors no longer will care for them because they’re in hospice,” Oz said.
Essayli said the FBI and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are part of the investigations that President Donald Trump hinted at earlier this week. While Essayli said that he could not discuss active investigations, he pointed to some cases from last summer.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is responding after President Donald Trump said Tuesday that California is being investigated for fraud.
“What Dr. Oz is referring to, the scale is almost beyond even our imagination,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office fired back at the president’s accusations of fraud and corruption in California, saying, in part, “Gavin Newsom has been cleaning house. Since taking office, he’s blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”
Friday’s news conference comes one day after California Attorney General Rob Bonta and four state attorneys general sued the Trump administration. Bonta said it is illegally freezing billions of dollars for child care and family assistance programs, citing alleged fraud.
“Not one shred of evidence,” Bonta said at a Thursday news conference. “This is unconscionable. It’s unlawful, and it’s undemocratic.”
A federal judge ruled Friday that Trump’s administration cannot block federal money for child care subsidies and other programs aimed at supporting needy children and their families from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now, including California.
Eyewitness News asked Essayli for context on what investigators believe is the scope of the fraud cases and how it compares over the years. Essayli said, in part, there was no appetite to combat fraud before this administration.
“We only know about the fraud that gets reported to us, or that our investigators uncover, or through what whistleblowers bring to us,” he said. “It’s hard to really tell you hard numbers, what the scale is, what that size is.”
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