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Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is advocating for a significant clampdown on Medicaid fraud in the state, following revelations of millions in taxpayer dollars allegedly being misallocated to fictitious home healthcare companies.
The inquiry revealed that 288 home healthcare businesses in Ohio were registered at the same address. Some of these listed locations appeared derelict or deserted, with no indication that any healthcare services were actually being provided.
Ramaswamy, during an appearance on “Saturday in America” with Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany, emphasized the need to scrutinize the spending of over $40 billion in state Medicaid funds. “We’re going to have to take a deep, hard look at the way the $40-plus billion in state Medicaid dollars are being spent,” he stated.
He further asserted, “Any instance of waste, fraud, or abuse deserves prosecution. We plan to investigate and prosecute these cases aggressively to send a clear message that our government and taxpayers are not sources to be exploited.”
The Republican billionaire raised concerns following a recent report by the Daily Wire, which highlighted widespread fraud similar to that discovered in several supposed childcare operations in Minneapolis in recent months.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s office fired back at Ramaswamy’s suggestion that social-services fraud is happening unchecked in the state.
In a statement to Fox News, DeWine’s office claimed Ohio has “extensive oversight mechanisms in place,” including “electronic visit verification for hourly care, requiring signed daily activity logs, conducting audits and surveys performing background checks on providers, and reassessing medical needs regularly.”
The term-limited governor’s office cited additional existing measures to root out would-be scammers, including “internal agency efforts to fight waste, fraud and abuse.”
In a statement to the outlet, the Ohio Department of Medicaid acknowledged the concerns the article raised, particularly in Franklin County, and said it has been “actively investigating these matters” even before the report was published.
“Upon initial review, some of the entities mentioned in the series are no longer Ohio Medicaid providers or have not billed Medicaid in several years. Some other providers are subject to ongoing investigation,” the statement said.
Ramaswamy chalked up the alleged rampant fraud as “downstream policies” of open borders and an “overgrown federal welfare state.
“That’s a big problem,” he said.
“We can’t fix the past. We can fix the future, and one of the things that I intend to do is to just take a dispassionate look at this,” he said.
“It’s not just responding to one news story or another as a game of whack-a-mole. The way I look at this is this is more of a broken-windows theory, which means that, if you have a broken window somewhere, it’s a reminder that we have to take a systematic look at the whole thing.”