Dr Oz details ‘weaponization of fraud’ in Minnesota, estimates total Medicaid fraud to be $100 billion

FIRST ON FOX: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz detailed Tuesday what he described as the “weaponization of fraud” in Minnesota, estimating that Medicaid fraud nationwide totals roughly “$100 billion.”

Appearing on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” Oz was asked by host Katie Miller what the “most shocking thing” he saw taking place in Minnesota was during his investigation into the alleged widespread fraud taking place in the state.

“The weaponization of fraud,” he responded. “When you’re elected to office, there’s some rules that you’re obliged to follow, but there’s always the opportunity for political patronage.”

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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz attends a press conference at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on June 30, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The former host of the “Dr. Oz Show” explained how “doing favors for people” can provide lucrative opportunities for those working in state health departments in ways that are “not always transparent to the voter.” He said that under federal law, once someone is signed up for Medicaid, they must also be offered a “voter I.D.”

“So it’s basically a voter enrichment and enrollment process and in Minnesota, I really think, having been there, interviewed folks who work in their Department of Health and Human Services — that there was an almost purposeful desire not to look carefully, and it wasn’t just in Minnesota, it was in Washington,” he detailed. “The program that we have that audits Medicaid was gutted.”

During his investigation, Oz found that there “wasn’t really a desire to focus on program integrity,” such as who should be on the insurance program and who should not. He added that this is happening due to the assumption by state administrators that the more people enrolled in the program, the better.

“The problem is, you should need to actually deserve to be on the program, because if you don’t deserve to be on the program, and you get all the benefits, you actually reduce our ability to help the people who deserve to be on the program,” he argued.

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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, listens as U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Following up, Miller asked the CMS administrator to give an estimate of the total Medicaid fraud taking place across the country.

“$100 billion,” he replied. “That money should go back to making the Medicare trust fund solvent for many years, it should go back to providing adequate, high quality services for mental health conditions. It should allow us to take better care of people in rural parts of the country, underserved parts of the country, but we look at numbers now, like in Southern California where you have a 7-fold increase in hospice. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Oz estimated that around 30% of hospice services “in the entire country” occur in Southern California, and noted that he sent a letter to “our good friend” California Gov. Gavin Newsom concerning the “massive increase in home healthcare in California.” The CMS administrator added that “literally 1 in $10 spent in the entire country in home health care is in L.A. — not California, L.A.,” and that the appropriate number should be “a third of that.”

“I went after it because I know this is the same organized criminal efforts,” he said of the city’s unusually high home healthcare numbers. “By the way, these aren’t accidents. These are often foreign nationals. We’ve got Russians in California who fled back to Russia when they got indicted. We have Cuban-run strings which we believe the Cuban government’s involved in with durable medical equipment. That’s the people who sell you wheelchairs and canes.”

The CMS administrator told Miller that there are “20 times more durable medical equipment providers in South Florida than McDonald’s,” calling the statistic “bizarre.”

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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks during an announcement at the Department of Health and Human Services on Dec. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (left); Tim Walz speaks at the Today, Explained live podcast at the Vox Media Podcast Stage presented by Smartsheet at SXSW on March 8, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (right) (Alex Wong/Getty Images; Rick Kern/Getty Images for Vox Media)

“You have to, again, almost not be looking,” he continued, adding that the scale of healthcare fraud taking place in the United States is “way beyond what you’d imagine.”

The full interview will be available Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Rumble and X.

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Top state officials like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have expressed skepticism about the size and scope of the fraud asserted by federal authorities, though Walz has said he has been working to crack down on the millions of dollars in fraud that have been detected.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.