COLUMBUS, Ohio — Federal law enforcement officials joined Ohio leaders to announce a slew of fraud busts. The national politicians praised Gov. Mike DeWine for his work, and dissed the GOP legislators who have been blaming him for allegations of Medicaid fraud.
At an event outside of Columbus, the state's leaders stood side by side with federal politicians to announce charges against people accused of defrauding the government of millions of dollars.
Todd Blanche, the acting U.S. attorney general, opened the event by talking about how the Trump administration is waging war against fraud.
"Ohio is facing some of the most significant fraud schemes in the country," Blanche said.
He, Medicaid chief Dr. Mehmet Oz and FBI Director Kash Patel explained a new effort to combat fraud of all kinds. They are starting a new federal-state system in order to share data. This new collaboration will help fight "fraudsters," they said.
"The cases that we're bringing represent a unified statewide fraud-fighting effort that's firing on all cylinders," Blanche continued.
The officials also announced several major indictments, with federal and state charges against nine defendants for allegedly defrauding the government of $42 million through Medicaid billing or COVID programs.
"In both cases, the defendants we allege were exploiting families, supposedly providing kids with particularly behavioral self behavioral services enrolled in community programs," Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said.
The state has also suspended 49 home health care providers for what they call “potential red flags” in their billing patterns, and has stopped government checks until they finish their investigations.
And the federal law enforcement officials are impressed with Ohio’s fraud-fighting.
"Ohio's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is one of the gold standard control units," Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said.
But Ohio politicians have been sharing a different story.
DeWine Drama
The governor was not invited to the event, one in which every other statewide official, minus Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, attended.
Legislative leaders have been calling out DeWine for allegedly failing to oversee Medicaid crimes.
"It's a system that's broken that we need to address in the very near term," Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said in mid-May. "It's something that we need leadership in place to make sure that we are taking this issue seriously."
The Medicaid fraud allegations come after The Daily Wire, a conservative outlet, published a story alleging rampant, yet unproven, claims of fraud.
"That's theft, and there's a whole gamut, if you will, of other things. There's recklessness. There's negligence," House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said in May when asked about whether DeWine was complicit if the allegations of fraud were true.
Huffman cited several ways DeWine may have contributed to fraud by vetoing provisions inside the budget that he said would put more safeguards in place. One of those items was a 2019 veto of a provision that would have required the state to audit Ohio's Medicaid managed care plans. When issuing his veto, DeWine wrote that the state auditor already had the authority to audit, and thus it was a duplication of regulation.
The speaker also blamed DeWine's former head of Medicaid for being "negligent" in her work — but referenced a line DeWine often says.
"The buck stops with him," Huffman said.
While Huffman has been one of the most vocal against DeWine, he has neglected to account for his possible role.
I brought up to the speaker in mid-May that in the last budget, he got rid of the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, a body that looked into waste, fraud and abuse.
"If there is fraud, how are you not responsible?" I asked both him and McColley.
Huffman responded, going through a history of how, in 2021, he created the Senate Medicaid Committee, and then, in 2025, he made the House Medicaid Committee.
"But to create a separate body and have a separate office, and it sounded good when we started, I think, for those folks responsible for creating it, but essentially wasn't effective in trying to get to the bottom of these things," Huffman said.
Each Medicaid committee hears bills about the system; their goal isn't oversight.
Even with the dissolution of JMOC, DeWine has been at the top, fighting against efforts for reform, Huffman said.
DeWine has fought back against the allegations against him, saying he’s been on top of any problems. He has cited nearly 1,100 medicaid fraud convictions since he took office in 2019.
RELATED: Dr. Oz trusts Gov. DeWine’s handling of Medicaid, as other Republicans express fraud concerns
Since 2011, DeWine has helped get 2,378 Medicaid fraud indictments and 2,216 convictions, his team said. Altogether, $645 million has been recovered, the state reports.
"We're going to continue to work directly with them and to do everything we can to stop any kind of fraud," the governor said in late May.
"You say it's a gold standard in Ohio for Medicaid fraud, and how Ohio is really great at fighting it. We have some legislative leaders who have said that Governor Mike DeWine, who is notably absent from this event, and Attorney General Dave Yost have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to fighting Medicaid fraud," I said to Blanche. "Where is the disconnect between the federal officials and state officials?"
"Well, I'm not going to speak to what state officials here have said; I can only tell you about what we see and the results that we react to," Blanche said.
He then dismissed the Republican legislative leaders.
"I guess a local politician can talk, but then we can have people that actually do and act," Blanche said. "And I'll take the 'do and act' over just somebody talking any day."
After the event, I asked state Rep. DJ Swearingen (R-Huron) how he felt that DeWine was being praised, noting he had critiqued him.
"The federal officials are focused on federal issues and not so much statewide politics," Swearingen replied. "They're here to help fight the fraudsters, and that's their job and not get involved in the politics of the thing."
Following the event, the governor's team said that he was supportive of the fraud-fighting initiative — even though he wasn't asked to participate.
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