HHS Secretary Dr. Mehmet Oz just took a field trip to Columbus, Ohio, and what he found would make even the most jaded taxpayer's blood boil — an entire empire of Medicaid fraud operating in broad daylight, billing for dead people, ghost nurses, and services that never happened. Meanwhile, his department has uncovered an 11,000% spike in autism therapy payments in North Carolina alone, and federal auditors found a 100% improper payment rate in sampled claims across four states.
But sure, tell me again how we can't find anywhere to cut spending.
Dr. Oz traveled to Columbus — home to the second-largest Somali population in the entire United States — and laid out the racket in terms even Congress could understand. Ohio Medicaid paid $5.7 million to a single company called La Belle Home Healthcare, which inflated hours for registered nurses who were never actually present. The company's owner, Nizhmi Tassing, was sentenced to three years in jail. As Oz put it: "Charging for dead people is a bad look when you go to court."
And La Belle wasn't some lone wolf. Columbus's Franklin County accounts for roughly one-third of Ohio's entire $1.5 billion home health care budget — more than three times what you'd expect for its population. On just one road, investigators found 288 Medicaid-registered home health aid companies crammed into seven office buildings. Think about that number. Two hundred eighty-eight companies. Seven buildings. One road.
"This is fraud at scale," Oz said. No kidding, Doc.
But Ohio is just one chapter of a much uglier book. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s HHS is now auditing all 50 states for Medicaid fraud, and the numbers coming out of the autism therapy pipeline are absolutely staggering, according to AMAC Newsline. In North Carolina, Medicaid payments for autism therapy — specifically Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA — exploded from $6 million in 2021 to $660 million in 2025. That's an 11,000% increase in four years. North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek didn't mince words: "These are rocket ship-type spikes. It immediately raises the attention that we need to take a look at it and see what's going on here."
Rocket ship is right. Across eight states — Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Maine — combined Medicaid autism spending ballooned from $347 million to $2.2 billion. The federal inspector general audited just four of those states and found $198 million in improper payments, representing 31% of all audited spending. The kicker? In the sampled claims, the improper payment rate was 100%. Every. Single. One.
So where's all this money actually going? Well, on May 21, 2026, the Department of Justice announced charges against 15 individuals in Minneapolis for a healthcare fraud scheme targeting $90 million in taxpayer dollars across seven Medicaid programs. The allegations include billing for services never provided, using unqualified staff, and illegal kickback arrangements. Sound familiar?
Now, defenders will point out that autism diagnoses have genuinely increased — the CDC has documented a significant rise over the past two decades. Fair enough. But David Laxton, Communications Director for the Autism Society of North Carolina, acknowledged that 35,000 children are receiving ABA therapy in the state. Even granting every legitimate diagnosis, a $6 million-to-$660 million jump doesn't add up without rampant fraud in the mix. HHS investigators are now verifying whether facilities even exist, whether services were actually delivered, and whether the billing patterns match reality.
Dr. Oz promised that within 24 hours of flagging fraud, enforcement action would follow. "People will stop using Medicaid as a piggy bank," he said. Vice President Vance, himself from Ohio, has called for the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force to pursue these fraudsters aggressively. And Gov. Mike DeWine's administration is on notice too — roughly 50% of personal care service claims in the state lacked even basic electronic verification.
Here's the bottom line. For decades, nobody in Washington wanted to audit these programs because the political cost of asking questions was higher than the financial cost of looking the other way. Billions walked out the door while bureaucrats shrugged. Now Dr. Oz is on the ground, following the money, naming names, and the cockroaches are scattering.
We paid for every dime of this fraud. Every ghost nurse, every fake clinic, every bill for a dead patient. Remember that the next time some senator tells you we can't possibly cut Medicaid without hurting vulnerable people. The vulnerable people were the taxpayers all along.
