Nick Shirley walked into a Minnesota daycare last December and found $110 million in fraud with no children inside.
Now he's in Gavin Newsom's California – and what he found is even bigger.
He just released a 40-minute video exposing over $170 million in waste, and what's on camera should land Newsom in front of a congressional hearing.
Nick Shirley Exposes Medi-Cal Fraud in San Diego Daycare With No Children Inside
Shirley visited a Somali-run daycare facility in San Diego that claimed to be caring for children.
There were no children inside.
When he asked the operator why the facility was empty, she screamed at him and called the police.
He visited hospice facilities across Los Angeles next.
Medi-Cal – California's version of Medicaid – has more than doubled in cost since 2022, jumping from $108 billion to a proposed $222 billion in 2026.
The population hasn't grown to match it. The spending has exploded anyway, and Shirley documented a 1,000 percent increase in hospice providers in LA County alone.
The fraudsters, Shirley reported, are living in luxury.
Gavin Newsom is doing nothing about it.
California Hospice Fraud Reaches $3.5 Billion as Los Angeles Medicare Scams Go Unchecked
This isn't isolated. This is a system.
Dr. Mehmet Oz – now heading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Trump – personally toured Los Angeles hospice sites and put a number on what he found: $3.5 billion in suspected fraud in LA County alone.
Los Angeles accounts for roughly 18 percent of all home health and hospice Medicare billing nationwide – a staggering concentration for a single county.
Oz described a four-block stretch in Los Angeles with 42 registered hospices.
Fox News found 742 of LA County's approximately 1,800 hospice providers still operating despite triggering multiple fraud red flags.
In the most staggering case, 89 separate companies were registered to a single building on Van Nuys Boulevard – 72 of which showed multiple indicators of fraud.
When CBS News tried to call 56 hospice offices flagged for five or more fraud indicators, they found disconnected phones, empty offices, and piles of unopened mail.
Newsom's response? He blamed the Trump administration.
"It's rich to see the Trump administration suddenly talking tough on hospice fraud," a Newsom spokesperson told Fox News.
That's what you say when you've had four years and made it worse.
Newsom signed a moratorium on new hospice licenses in 2021. According to a ProPublica investigation, new hospices kept appearing anyway – some with 15 new operators sharing the same two-story LA building.
Gavin Newsom Had Years to Stop California Welfare Fraud and Made It Worse
California's Medi-Cal auditor flagged the program as "high risk" for mismanagement back in 2007.
Nothing changed.
The December 2025 state auditor report still cited the department for enabling "waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement."
By March 2025, the Department of Health Care Services needed a $3.4 billion emergency loan from the state's general fund. A week later it came back for another $2.8 billion bailout.
Sacramento's answer to all of it? Tax the billionaires.
Every dollar those fraudsters pocket is a dollar that was supposed to go to a real patient who needed real hospice care.
In one documented case, a Los Angeles woman in her late sixties was denied coverage for physical therapy – because someone had used her Medicare information to bill the government for hospice services she never requested, leaving her records falsely showing a terminal status.
That's Gavin Newsom's California.
Shirley already exposed $110 million in Minnesota. He came to California and found it's worse – and Shirley himself says the total fraud could reach into the hundreds of billions.
Trump's DOJ and CMS have already referred 343 fraud cases to law enforcement representing $3.4 billion in suspicious billing. Federal prosecutors have California in their sights.
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Newsom has had years. He had task forces. He had moratoriums. He had press releases.
A 23-year-old with a camera found more in 40 minutes than Sacramento found in two decades – and the fraudsters are still cashing checks.
Sources:
- Cristina Laila, "WATCH: Investigative Journalist Nick Shirley Releases Video Uncovering $170 Million in Fraud in California," The Gateway Pundit, March 16, 2026.
- Rachel Wolf, "Los Angeles County Faces Scrutiny After Alleged Widespread Hospice Fraud Exposed," Fox News, March 12, 2026.
- "CMS, DOJ 'Aggressively' Cracking Down on Hospice Fraud," Hospice News, January 12, 2026.
- "California Revokes 280 Hospice Licenses in Fraud Fight; Congressional Hearing Set," Hospice News, January 28, 2026.
- "Can Billionaire Tax Cure California's Healthcare Woes?" RealClearInvestigations, March 3, 2026.
- "In the Four Years Since Governor Newsom's New Hospice Provider Ban Took Effect, California Has Revoked More Than 280 Licenses," Governor of California, January 27, 2026.
