Christopher Rufo Uncovers a New California "Fraud Magnet," Costing Us $30 Billion Per Year

You know how Somali Pirates claim to be "day care providers" for each other's kids? And get paid $150,000 per year for sitting on their asses at home?

Well here's another grift: "In-Home Support Care."

Does your Uncle Mohammad need "in-home support"? Is he willing to claim he does?

Well, here's $100,000 to provide that service. We promise -- we won't check up with you and won't even balk at your claiming to provide federally-compensated "in-home supportive services" to your spouse.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is embroiled in a national fraud scandal. Thus far, much of the coverage has focused on alleged schemes related to unemployment insurance, hospice care, and food stamps. In this exclusive investigation, we shine a light on one of California's largest initiatives: the In-Home Supportive Services Program, or IHSS, which pays family members and other individuals to provide home-based care for the elderly and disabled--at a cost of nearly $30 billion per year.

On the surface, IHSS presents itself as an instrument of compassion, directing billions to caregivers who help with cooking, personal care, laundry, and other daily needs inside recipients' homes. But a growing number of experts and critics argue that the program is rife with fraud, losing roughly an estimated $6 billion to $12 billion yearly to scammers. Meantime, the state's powerful home-care unions collect more than $149 million in membership dues, funneling money into the political network supporting Newsom and California Democrats.

This is the story of a government that has allowed compassion to become a mask for fraud, creating a self-reinforcing system that keeps the Democratic establishment in power.

In 1973, California created what became the IHSS program to provide in-home care to the elderly and disabled. The IHSS caseload exploded in the 1980s, prompting the state to impose hour caps on care providers. California offers the program through Medi-Cal, its version of Medicaid, and pays providers with a combination of federal, state, and county funds.

IHSS has long been considered a magnet for fraud. In 2009, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated that up to 25 percent of IHSS claims were fraudulent. A Sacramento grand jury report that year found that providers had "no meaningful oversight, no assessment of skills to meet client needs, no monitoring of the validity of service hours, and no background checks."

After growth of the program's rolls exploded in the early 2000s, Schwarzenegger signed legislation aimed at curbing abuse, requiring IHSS providers to undergo criminal background checks and introducing random claim reviews.

But soon after the law's passage, a state workgroup, teaming with representatives from "labor organizations," introduced a key loophole. Citing concerns about disruptions for "vulnerable members of the IHSS community," the task force barred regulators from conducting fully randomized, unannounced home visits, leaving the program more exposed to scammers.

Yes, they do this on purpose. Minnesota stopped all auditing and verification precisely to allow Democratic Somali Pirate voters to use Minnesota paperwork to defraud the taxpayers from other states.

They approve of this because they see it as Back-Door Reparations. Evil White Racists won't agree to provide reparations to Somalis -- a people we have virtually no historic connection to, for good or for ill, and so owe absolutely nothing to them -- so they deliberately blind the government to fraud. Let the Somalis pick whatever level of Unofficial Back-Door Reparations they think they're "owed."

It's barely even fraud -- it's the politicians like Ellison and Walz who are the criminals. They're the embezzlers.

Since then, the program has expanded dramatically again. "IHSS provider" has become the largest low-wage occupation statewide, with more than 800,000 taxpayer-funded caregivers offering everything from grocery shopping to personal care.

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The system operates largely on trust. Providers self-report their timecards and check-in records. In roughly 60 percent of cases, providers and beneficiaries live together, delivering care in private homes--typically without the threat of random, unannounced visits.

Just sign up for to provide "in-home supportive services" to your own f***ing spouse. California will pay you do to so, taking money from the federal government for the payments.

...

California, in other words, is sending billions of dollars per year to a program that is easy to exploit, difficult to administer, and almost impossible to supervise.

In 2024, the federal government began a series of enforcement actions. As part of a nationwide crackdown on health-care-related crimes, the United States Department of Justice announced prosecutions for alleged IHSS fraud in California.

In one case, the DOJ alleged that San Dimas resident Giacomo Lorenzo Garbarino billed the state for more than $170,000 in fraudulent IHSS and Medi-Cal services over a five-year period. The patient in his care was reportedly hospitalized or living in a facility at the time and thus ineligible for IHSS reimbursement. In another case, Joseph Depiazza allegedly billed the state for more than $50,000 in fraudulent IHSS services. According to prosecutors, he kept submitting claims after the patient entered the hospital--and even after she had died.

Last year, federal officials announced another round of IHSS fraud prosecutions. In one case, prosecutors alleged that Maryam Erambakhsh falsely claimed payments for caring for her parents while they were outside the United States. In another, Cindy Lynn Fromm allegedly billed the program for more than a year of services while the recipient was incarcerated.

These cases may be the tip of the iceberg. Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government and a nationally recognized fraud expert, estimates that annual IHSS fraud could amount to 20 percent to 40 percent of total program spending. Applied to projected IHSS outlays for fiscal year 2025--26, that suggests roughly $6 billion to $12 billion in losses. Multiple senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have described a similar pattern, estimating that about 25 percent of the Medi-Cal budget is lost to fraud. The share is likely higher for IHSS, given the program's structure and its susceptibility to abuse.

Earlier this year, Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, set off a firestorm of controversy with the claim that criminal networks, including the "Russian Armenian mafia," were running massive hospice and home care scams in Los Angeles. He suggested that Armenians in Los Angeles were disproportionately represented among the leaders of hospice fraud rings.

Read the whole thing, after you've taken your blood pressure medicine.

Even CBS is covering Democrat fraud.

A CBS News Investigation found one Los Angeles County hospice physician's name, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024, according to the last full year of available data.

In one year, mind you. Even if she saw each patient just once and worked seven days a week, she'd have to see about 8 patients per day to rack up 2,800 patient visits.

Update: I made an error. I said she would have to see 40 patients a day.

No doctor in California is connected to more hospices than Dr. Rajiv Bhuva. In 2024, his name appeared on Medicare claims across 126 hospice companies in California -- 115 of them in Los Angeles County alone.

In 2024, Medicare paid out tens of millions in taxpayer dollars for care attributed to Dr. Bhuva -- a figure that surpassed nearly every other hospice physician in the state.

The average California hospice doctor cares for about 140 patients a year. In 2024, claims with Bhuva's name were submitted for 2,791 terminally ill patients.

Only one hospice doctor in California was identified as receiving more Medicare reimbursement than Bhuva in recent years: Dr. Domingo Barrientos. His reimbursements totalled $90.3 million. He is currently in federal prison for conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

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Dr. Kristina Newport, chief medical officer at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, said the kind of numbers linked to Bhuva and other highly prolific medical providers in the industry raise an array of questions.

"They would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way," Newport believes.

In a brief interview at the front door of his mid-century stucco home in a mountainside suburb of Los Angeles, Bhuva told CBS News he doubted the figures and said there was no statutory limit to the number of hospices any one physician can staff. But after a brief exchange, he declined to speak further.

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The data shows Bhuva's national identifier was tied to the one of the largest volumes of Medicare hospice reimbursements in California in 2024. The data does not establish whether Bhuva personally authorized the claims, whether his credentials were used without his consent, or whether there is another explanation.

CBS News found Bhuva's name among the physicians billing Medicare at several hospices that lost their Medicare certification for what regulators called an "abuse of billing" -- a pattern of submitting improper claims. Those hospices were banned from Medicare for a 10-year period.

California state auditors say that anytime records show a doctor working for more than three hospice providers at one time, it could be a hallmark of fraud and prompts reasonable questions about "whether they are actually participating in the operations of those hospices." More than 600 doctors exceed that threshold in California, according to Medicare data obtained and analyzed by CBS News.

On paper, those 600 doctors appear to be both incredibly busy -- and profitable to the businesses they serve. While they accounted for roughly 7% of California's hospice physicians, they generated more than half of the state's $4.2 billion in Medicare hospice reimbursements in 2024, the last full year of data available.

In state and federal records, certain names stand out. The ten busiest hospice doctors -- those whose names are linked to the most operators in California -- generated more in Medicare reimbursements than 90% of their peers in 2024.

The Democrats are not "asleep at the wheel" -- they are active co-conspirators in the greatest mass-looting in the history of the Earth.

The Party of Third-World Looters:

Third World Colonizers come into the country and after five years start deciding how to start splitting up American property and treasure between them.

Related: ICE shot a wanted man who attempted to run them down with his vehicle.

Expect riots to follow.

PATTERSON, Cali. (TNND) -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot a wanted man in California on Tuesday after he allegedly "weaponized his vehicle" and attempted to run an officer over, according to the agency's acting director.

ICE agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop in Patterson to arrest Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, an alleged member of the 18th Street Gang who is wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection with a murder, authorities said.

"As officers approached the car, the wanted gang member used his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over," Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.".

Joachin is charged with homicide without premeditation and criminal mischief.

Well that's the "non-violent" form of homicide, doncha know.

Thanks to L, no nic, another fine day.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:29 PM

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