(From Eighth District Congressman Jason Smith)Medicare was created as a promise to every American who spent decades working and paying into the system so that when the time came, they could get the care they needed. Today, that promise is under attack. The Ways and Means Committee, which I chair, has jurisdiction over the Medicare program, and I am fighting every day to preserve those benefits for current and future seniors. For years, criminal networks have moved in and are bleeding it dry, but I am committed to finally holding these criminals accountable.
Every year, $60 billion in Medicare funds is stolen through fraud, waste, and abuse — that’s nearly $900 per beneficiary that should be going toward patient care and lower costs for seniors. Instead, criminals are stealing from taxpayers and robbing seniors of the care they need and getting rich off their schemes in the process. The American people deserve answers and accountability. That’s exactly why I held a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday to learn the true scope of this fraud, and what we discovered was deeply concerning.
During our hearing, we heard from a patient, Dr. Lynn Ianni, who told us her story of how she was impacted by fraud. She had a sports injury, and went to get physical therapy, but Medicare denied her claim because she had been enrolled by criminals in a fraudulent hospice care scheme for two years without her knowledge. This individual had never been on hospice a day in her life, but fraudsters had enrolled her without her knowledge and were cashing in.
Sheila Clark, a hospice industry expert, shared that fraudsters were able to enroll a burrito stand in California as an accredited hospice facility and was collecting taxpayer dollars. Let that sink in. One building in Los Angeles County was also found to allegedly be the home of 89 different hospice operations. In LA County alone, there is estimated to be over $3.5 billion in fraud in Medicare. And that’s just California. Democrat governors in Minnesota and New York have turned a blind eye to fraud for years.
In New York, fraudulent home health aides have become the number one new job in the state, totaling more than 600,000 as of January 2026 — more than double than that of the second highest occupation. And in Minnesota, investigators estimate more than $9 billion across several public programs has been lost to fraud, including the sham daycare centers where there wasn’t a single child in the building. Democrat governors have known about these issues and continued to look away.
As Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, I’m committed to working with President Trump and his administration to tackle fraud wherever it is found. Last year, I requested a GAO investigation that found nearly 60,000 individuals were receiving subsidized care through Obamacare despite the fact that they were dead.
The fact is, it shouldn’t be hard to fix this problem, and we’re already working to enact some commonsense solutions. I pushed for the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act signed into law, which permanently allows the Social Security Administration to share death records with the Treasury Department. In its first year alone, it has stopped over $100 million in payments going to people who are no longer alive.
Unlike Democrat politicians across the country, President Trump is not turning a blind eye to fraud. His 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown has saved taxpayers nearly $15 billion and charged more than 300 people committing Medicare fraud with federal crimes. The Trump Administration has also shut down 450 fraudulent hospices in Los Angeles alone, and not one of them have asked why their payments stopped because they knew they were never legitimate to begin with.
The days of fraudsters stealing taxpayer dollars without any fear of oversight or accountability are over. Medicare belongs to the people who earned it, and I will keep fighting every single day to make sure it stays that way.
