CMS Administrator Dr.Mehmet Oz says Medicaid fraud has become a "feature" blue states use to exploit the system.President Donald Trump's chief at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in an interview with Fox News Digital urged California Gov.
Gavin Newsom and other Democrat governors to join the administration's anti-fraud push."Why would you steal money from Medicaid?" Oz questioned, before explaining how he believes some states are using Medicaid-funded care programs as an economic engine for their state and will distribute federal reimbursements to pay unemployed people."I began to realize that stealing money from Medicaid is not a flaw for a lot of states, it's a feature of the program." he continued."They call it 'Medicaid-ing it.'"I'M OHIO'S STATE AUDITOR — MEDICAID FRAUD IS NOT JUST A WASHINGTON PROBLEMMehmet Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, speaks during a press conference on health care fraud enforcement at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC on June 30, 2025.
(Mandel Ngan/AFP)He continued, "You're taking money from the federal government creating a Medicaid benefit, paying a lot of money for it.Now all these people who would have been unemployed, costing the state money, are instead of getting money from the federal government.
You're taxing that, which makes the state richer."Oz also argued the arrangement creates political incentives because those workers can unionize, which he claims benefits Democrats by allowing the unions to help fund the party’s political action committees (PACs)."The service industry's unionizing these workers," Oz said."That gets union dues into their coffers, those union dues can now pay for political action committees, funding.
Of course, one party — always.""That party now has a lot of money coming in for local and state elections, and we are paying for it!," he lamented. Newsom was the main blue-state leader that Oz accused of failing to adequately addre...