FIRST ON FOX: Vice President JD Vance will host members of Congress at the White House on Wednesday morning for a fraud task force meeting where members will discuss potential legislative action to address the administration’s crackdown on fraud.
A source familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital that roughly 20 members from both the House and Senate are expected at the meeting. Vance will also detail how members can target fraud in the various states and districts they represent.
Vance has previously hosted meetings at the White House to address fraud with a number of attorneys general alongside other members of the administration involved in the task force led by Vance.
“Our task force is using every tool at its disposal to end fraud once and for all. Congress has an important role to play in cracking down on fraudsters and protecting federal programs from abuse,” a White House official told Fox News Digital. “President Trump, Vice President Vance, and all of the task force’s interagency partners will not relent until every fraudster is brought to justice.”
On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that it is expanding its Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force to Philadelphia as federal and state authorities target alleged Medicare and Medicaid fraud involving home healthcare services, adding Pennsylvania to a number of states across the country where the administration is honed in on fraud.
Federal and state law enforcement charged 19 defendants accused of participating in schemes involving more than $4 million in claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a DOJ release obtained by Fox News.
On Sunday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday also announced a plea agreement involving the final defendant in a previously charged 21-defendant case tied to more than $1.7 million in claims.
“The vice president’s task force continues to stop the flow of taxpayer funds before they fall into the hands of fraudsters and deliver savings to the American people,” a spokesperson for Vance told Fox News Digital. “This is great momentum in the fight for the President’s War on Fraud.”
WATCH: DR. OZ SAYS NEWSOM, OTHER BLUE STATES HAVE TURNED MEDICAID FRAUD INTO A ‘FEATURE’
The task force has suspended payments to a number of healthcare providers who have been suspected of fraud across the country. As of May, Vance and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz withheld more than $1.4 billion in federal funding for home health and hospice providers nationwide.
In June, the Trump administration revealed new figures that show a drastic 7,100% spike in Medicare claims for skin substitutes in just six years, surging from $200 million to $14.4 billion from 2019 to 2025.
CMS identified 4,200 suspicious claims for skin substitutes, known as allografts, totaling $224 million in charges through May of this year.
“That’s a lot of money,” Oz said during a news conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. “And that bankrupts not just hospital systems and physician groups, but it causes major problems across the entire landscape.”
President Donald Trump established the task force through an executive order in May. He appointed Vance to the fraud crackdown team and various agencies and departments have been involved in rooting out widespread fraud.
“Vice President JD Vance and Republicans are doing a great job hunting down Fraud in the various States,” Trump posted on Truth Social in June. “Billions of Dollars is being found, and we’ve just started!”
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