Vance says 780 shuttered hospice centers never responded after fraud crackdown

“Well, we just have to prosecute as much as we can and we have to accept that, yes, there are going to be some blue states that fight us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do our job. And for every person that slips through the cracks because of a crooked judge, we’re going to get 10 people who actually go to prison or suffer real consequences for it and we’re also saving the American people a lot of money,” Vance said. 

“You can have a fraudster, you can have them dead to rights, you can have them literally in a text message confessing to the crime but sometimes you’re still going to have corrupt judges,” Vance said. 

Vance said that the administration anticipated pushback from judges in Democratic-led states, and is developing legal strategies to pursue prosecutions in jurisdictions it believes will be more favorable.

He also acknowledged that some cases may not move forward but said officials still expect to bring a substantial amount of prosecutions. 

“The fraud is right there for everybody to see. We closed down 800 fraudulent hospice centers. If you’re running a business and the federal government closes down your main source of revenue, do you write a letter? Do you make a phone call? Seven-hundred and eighty of those we’ve closed down, we haven’t even heard a single thing from anybody. That’s how bad the fraud is,” Vance said. 

Vance said the fraud was so clear that those involved did not attempt to restore the affected services after they were shut down. He also suggested officials are examining whether anyone in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) office could face scrutiny. 

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“When I hear a report that says to the governor, ‘here’s all this fraud and he doesn’t do anything about it,’ I ask myself, ‘was anybody engaged in criminal wrongdoing? Was anybody in his office engaged in criminal wrongdoing?’ Again, I’m not going to say yes, but I am going to promise the American people,” he said. 

Attention surrounding investigations into fraud began in response to the fraud crisis with Minnesota’s social services programs, where fraudulent rings had stolen billions of taxpayer dollars for personal gains.