(The Center Square) – Democratic attorneys general decided against attending a Tuesday roundtable at the White House to discuss fraud in welfare, including Medicaid.
Speaking to reporters during a webinar Tuesday afternoon, the Democratic attorneys general claimed they were invited late Friday afternoon and that it was too short of notice.
Those appearing in the webinar were Attorneys General Rob Bonta of California, Letitia James of New York, Jennifer Davenport of New Jersey, Josh Kaul of Wisconsin and Anne Lopez of Hawaii.
Bonta told reporters that the short notice they were given sent a clear message that they were either an afterthought or were not welcome.
“Either way, it doesn't match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our state and federal partnerships to address fraud,” said Bonta. “We declined the clearly disingenuous last-minute invitation."
In February, during his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump put Vice President JD Vance in charge of a task force to eliminate fraud.
The task force was created weeks later, and since that time, Vance has been speaking about fraud occurring in blue states such as New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Wisconsin and California.
The Center Square reached out Tuesday to Vance's office for a response to the Democratic attorneys general's comments, but did not hear back by press time.
Bonta told reporters that fraud affects all states, both blue and red.
“It threatens public services that vulnerable families rely on and erodes public trust in our government, which is why Democratic AGs are going after fraud with the full force of our offices,” said Bonta. “While the president and Dr. Oz spread lies and staged stunts to stoke the flames of distrust, the truth is Democratic AGs have recovered billions of taxpayer dollars, secured criminal convictions, and implemented reforms to strengthen the security of our programs.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who formerly hosted a daytime medical show, is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Pointing to California’s Department of Justice, Bonta said his state has four teams specifically dedicated to eradicating fraud.
These are the Division of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, the Corporate Fraud Section, the Tax Recovery in Underground Economy Task Force and the Recycle Fraud Team.
According to Bonta, these teams, in collaboration with the Division of Law Enforcement and others across the DOJ, have recovered more than $2.8 billion in fraud against California in the last 10 years.
“We've conducted more than 2,300 criminal investigations related to fraud, filed charges against 958 individuals for fraud-related crimes, and conducted 1,121 civil investigations with multiple filed cases,” said Bonta. “DOJ's Division of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, an entire division devoted to snuffing out healthcare fraud against California's Medicaid program, has secured over $1.2 billion from Medi-Cal fraud cases since I took office in 2021.”
Bonta said California has undertaken 294 hospice fraud investigations, filed 109 hospice-related criminal cases and secured 51 hospice-related convictions.
In April, Bonta reported the state took down a hospice fraud ring in Los Angeles County that was responsible for defrauding Medi-Cal and California of $267 million.
“We arrested five individuals and filed felony criminal charges against 21 suspects,” said Bonta.
To date, it is the largest hospice fraud bust in state history.
“While President Trump, Vice President Vance and Dr. Oz seem to have just woken up to the reality of healthcare fraud, the truth is our team of agents, investigators, and prosecutors have been on the ground, in the field, and arresting and prosecuting fraudsters who see our public program as their piggy banks for years,” said Bonta.
Near the end of the webinar, attorneys general took questions from reporters.
The Center Square asked the attorneys general how fraudsters are able to commit fraud in their states and whether they need more resources.
Bonta said fraud occurs in all 50 states, and wherever there's money flowing from government programs, there are bad actors trying to secure gains through fraud.
“There is data that shows how the different Medicaid fraud control units have performed when it comes to tackling fraud. It’s measured in a bunch of different ways like indictments and convictions and amount of funds protected, and California performs in the top four of all the states in one of those metrics,” said Bonta, “So I think that we need to first acknowledge that there is fraud in red states, and the suggestion that it only happens in blue states is wrong. It’s not accurate, and some of the red states are among the poorest performers when it comes to their influence.”
But Bonta added, “There’s always room for improvement,” including in California.
Bonta invited states and the federal government to work together.
“The starting point for them is to be sincere,” said Bonta. “Act in good faith. Be serious about helping. Stop the politics. Stop the weaponizing. Stop trying to beat up blue states to score points and to try to rage-bait and get clicks. If they do that, that's a good start.”
Other attorneys general responded to The Center Square's question.
“As recently as March, the Trump administration's own Department of Health and Human Services has recognized New York and other states as national leaders when it comes to fraud recoveries,” said James, the New York attorney general. “Fraud is not just limited to blue states. Fraud happens in all states across the nation.”
James added that it is important federal and state governments work together and not politicize the issue of fraud, “particularly when there are vulnerable individuals right now who are wasting away in nursing homes” in states.
“We need to have tools. We need to have data analytics, and we cannot have cuts to Medicaid that unfortunately is hurting our effort to address and to combat fraud and waste in each of our respective states, not just blue states, not just red states, but in all states,” said James.
Lopez, the Hawaii attorney general, said her state just had a visit from auditors from the Office of Inspector General auditors from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She acknowledged Hawaii “could do better” with indictments and criminal prosecutions.
“And I will acknowledge that if that's your only metric for determining efficacy, though, you're missing a large portion of the work that our officers do,” said Lopez. “Having said that, recruitment of investigators is very difficult for us. We have positions that we haven't been able to fill with the kinds of people we need.”
With the auditors’ recommendations, Lopez said her office will be able to take that information to the Legislature next year to request specific kinds of appropriations.
“It's this collaboration. It's OIG helping us to use best practices and working with us that allows us to be effective,” said Lopez.
Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and co-chair of the Fraud Task Force, was also on hand for Tuesday’s White House event with Vance, as well as Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff and senior adviser to the task force.
