President Trump announces ‘war on fraud’ in 2026 State of the Union address
President Donald Trump announced a “war on fraud” in his State of the Union address, saying Vice President J.D. Vance would lead the charge.
Prosecutors announced April 2 the arrest of eight people suspected of running a series of health care fraud schemes that defrauded Medicare and other insurance companies of tens of millions of dollars across Southern California.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Esseri said eight defendants, including three nurses, a chiropractor and a psychologist, were charged in separate cases with defrauding the health care system of more than $50 million. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the arrests were made in conjunction with a federal task force created as part of President Donald Trump’s “war on fraud.”
Prosecutors alleged that the defendants engaged in various schemes to exploit union health benefits and hospice care programs through fraudulent billing and illegal kickbacks. Prosecutors said five of the cases involved hospice care facilities in multiple cities in Los Angeles County that made false claims to Medicare for patients who were terminally ill and ineligible for services.
One person was arrested in Idaho and one in the Los Angeles area on suspicion of defrauding union health insurance by offering chiropractic services, prosecutors said. Another person in the Los Angeles area was also accused of posing as a nurse and completing fraudulent immigration documents.
In a press conference, Essayri, a Trump appointee, accused California of failing to vet hospice permits when issuing them, calling the state a “kingdom of fraud.” In a statement regarding
“The Trump administration, home to the biggest fraudsters on the planet, is trying to blame California for problems with federal programs,” Newsom said on X. “I’m pleased that just 15 months into President Trump’s presidency, the Federal Reserve is finally getting serious about addressing fraud in the programs it administers.”
In March, President Trump signed an executive order creating a task force led by Vice President J.D. Vance with the goal of proving his claims that federal funds intended for social welfare programs were being stolen in some states. The signed order specifies that the task force will investigate suspected fraud across the country.
At the time, President Trump specifically singled out California in his remarks, saying that there were more fraud allegations in Democratic-led states than in Republican-led states, although he offered no evidence. Fraud experts previously told USA TODAY that these cases are not a question of whether a state is red or blue, but a question of how well states and the federal government can work together.
Suspected Hospice Care Fraud Scheme
Prosecutors argued that the defendants in the hospice care plan operated a facility that “defrauded Medicare by using people who were not terminally ill as beneficiaries.”
“The defendants indicted today allegedly turned hospice care into a cash cow business, costing taxpayers more than $50 million,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General T. March Bell said in a statement. “The scale of the losses highlights the deliberate abuse of power and trust vested in health care providers.”
The largest case, announced April 2, involved a hospice care company based in Artesia, California, a city in southeast Los Angeles County. Prosecutors accused the owner, a licensed vocational nurse, of using the company to submit more than $9 million in fraudulent hospice claims to Medicare from July 2020 to April 2025. She received more than $8.5 million for these applications.
Prosecutors say the owners billed Medicare for hospice services for patients who were not terminally ill and paid kickbacks for patient referrals. One couple told authorities they were promised $300 a month to enroll in hospice care and received unnecessary items such as energy drinks, non-prescription vitamins and a wheelchair, even though they were not terminally ill.
Other defendants include:
- A psychologist and his wife, a registered nurse, were arrested on suspicion of defrauding Medicare by paying illegal kickbacks for referrals of patients who did not die. Prosecutors said the couple submitted more than $5.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, and more than $4 million was paid on those claims.
- Another person indicted is already serving time in a federal prison in Seattle for a previous hospice fraud case, prosecutors said. The husband was arrested as a co-defendant on the morning of April 2nd.
- A Los Angeles-area certified vocational nurse is accused of using a hospice center to bill more than $3.8 million between January 2022 and September 2025, prosecutors said. She was paid approximately $3.4 million.
- The CEO and CFO of another Los Angeles-area hospice center, whose enrollment in Medicare was revoked in August 2024, accused them of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Medicare by forging at least one doctor’s signature on Medicare documents.
Contributor: Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY. Reuters
