Vance Dropped a Medicare Gut Punch With One Staggering Number That Ruins Democrat Campaigns

Mehmet Oz found 42 hospices crammed into a four-block stretch of Los Angeles.

Then Vice President JD Vance walked into the MAHA Summit in Washington carrying a far bigger number.

He followed it with a three-word jab aimed at the politicians who campaign on saving Medicare.

Vance Put a Price Tag on the Fraud at the Waldorf Astoria

Vance shared the stage with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Make America Healthy Again Summit on September 29.

He chairs the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force, and he opened with the number.

"We have found close to $250 billion in fraud just since I've been leading the task force," Vance said.

That is a quarter of a trillion dollars.

The figure covers fraud across the entire federal government, not just Medicare.

Then he turned his fire on the people who run Medicare ads every election year.

"I always find it a little ironic when congressional Democrats, who say that they care a lot about Medicare… don't do anything to try to cut down on the fraud," Vance said.

A little ironic is putting it gently.

Every dollar a crook steals from Medicare is a dollar that never reaches a retiree's heart medicine or hip replacement.

Vance also hammered the lack of basic eligibility checks, saying the government has been sending "billions and billions of dollars to people receiving benefits" who should never have qualified.

"I don't want Americans to think that when they pay their money to the IRS, they give it to a fraudster," he said.

Forty-Two Hospices in Four Blocks and Gavin Newsom Mocked the Cleanup

Los Angeles shows exactly what Vance is talking about.

"In this four block area in Los Angeles, there are 42 hospices," CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said.

"So, either there are a lot of people dying here, or you got a fraudulent activity that is so good everyone wants to get in on it."

Oz believes at least half the hospices around Los Angeles are fraudulent.

He has pointed out that roughly one-third of America's hospice providers sit in Los Angeles, a region home to about 2.5 percent of the country's seniors.

By mid-May, CMS had suspended payments to roughly 800 Los Angeles hospices and home health agencies that billed Medicare $1.4 billion the year before.

On May 13, 2026, Oz slapped a six-month nationwide moratorium on new Medicare enrollments for both kinds of providers.

Gavin Newsom's press office answered by mocking the man doing the cleanup.

The office said it was "amazing to watch Dr. Oz cosplay as a fraud fighter for an effort the STATE launched years ago."

Newsom later dismissed the federal crackdown as "purely political."

Sacramento can brag about the licenses it revoked.

Washington still had to step in and halt more than $1.3 billion in federal reimbursements.

Hospice is supposed to comfort Americans in their final days.

Fraud rings in Newsom's California turned it into an ATM.

The Justice Department Is Chasing Health Care Crooks All the Way to Estonia

The crackdown did not start at the MAHA Summit.

In June 2025, the Justice Department ran the largest health care fraud takedown in American history, charging 324 defendants in schemes totaling more than $14.6 billion.

On June 23, 2026, prosecutors came back and charged 455 more, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals.

Agents seized more than $182 million in cash, luxury cars, and jewelry, and grabbed fugitives as far away as Cyprus, Estonia, and the Philippines.

Vance laid out the new rule in one line: "If you defraud the American taxpayer, you go to prison."

He also wants the stolen money clawed back, so the next crook knows the payday is not worth the prison cell.

Under Vance's task force, a fake clinic billing Medicare is a crime scene, not a line item.

Democrats Want the Medicare Fight Without the Fraud Fight

For decades Medicare ran on a model insiders call "pay and chase."

The government cut the check first and maybe went looking for the thief later.

By then the money was gone, sitting in a fake hospice's bank account or wired overseas.

Vance, Oz, and the Justice Department are flipping that model by freezing payments, blocking new shell companies, and hauling crooked doctors into federal court.

Democrats warn every two years that Republicans are coming for your Medicare.

The real threat has been fraudsters draining the program, and when Oz went after them, Newsom's office went after Oz.

Seniors paid into Medicare their entire working lives.

The party protecting that money is the one putting the thieves in handcuffs, not the one cutting campaign ads about it.

Sources:

• Virginia Grace McKinnon, "'A Little Ironic': Vance Calls Out Democrats Over Medicare Fraud," The Daily Signal, September 29, 2026.
• Angelina Delfin, "$1.3 Billion Frozen in Sweeping California Hospice Fraud Crackdown," The Daily Signal, May 15, 2026.
• Alexa Mae Asperin, "Newsom, Dr. Oz Feud Intensifies Over Armenian 'Mafia' Hospice Fraud Claims in Los Angeles," FOX 11 Los Angeles, January 29, 2026.
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, "CMS Announces Aggressive Nationwide Crackdown on Fraud with Six-Month Hospice and Home Health Agency Enrollment Moratoria," CMS Newsroom, May 13, 2026.
• HHS Office of Inspector General, "2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown," HHS-OIG, June 23, 2026.
• U.S. Department of Justice, "National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 324 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $14.6 Billion in Alleged Fraud," Justice Department, June 30, 2025.