Three's a Charm: Ohio Medicaid Fraud Scheme Explodes Into the Open

Summary

Podcast Summary: The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

Episode: Three's a Charm: Ohio Medicaid Fraud Scheme Explodes Into the Open
Date: May 6, 2026
Host: Ben Ferguson (Premiere Networks)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into a shocking Medicaid fraud scheme in Ohio, exposing how billions in taxpayer funds are being siphoned off by fraudulent home healthcare companies. Host Ben Ferguson unpacks a new investigative report revealing massive systemic abuse within Ohio's Medicaid program, challenging the notion that such problems are limited to liberal or Democratic strongholds. The story brings to light how lax oversight, loopholes, and a lack of transparency have enabled an epic level of waste—and calls attention to bipartisan accountability for the crisis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unveiling of Ohio’s Medicaid Fraud ([04:38]–[18:17])

• Shocking Discovery Outside Traditional "Liberal" States:

  • Ben Ferguson highlights that while Medicaid fraud was previously spotlighted in places like Minnesota, Ohio—considered a Republican stronghold—is now the epicenter of a new scandal.
  • Quote: “There’s a lot of people that thought, well, this is just fraud. That’s going to happen in extreme places where there’s hardcore liberals. We’re now saying that is not true.” ([04:43])

• The Mechanisms of Fraud:

  • The state of Ohio provided Medicaid waivers, expanding the program beyond its initial scope, enabling billing for homemaking and chores (“personal services”) performed for Medicaid beneficiaries.
  • Notably, these tasks are often performed by relatives and do not require health care credentials.
  • Payments increased to over $1 billion in 2024 for home healthcare, with no adequate verification systems for services performed.
  • Ferguson notes, “So we are paying people to hang out with family members. I, I wish I was joking. I’m not.” ([05:47])

• A Black Box of Accountability & Oversight:

  • Services are delivered in private homes, making government oversight nearly impossible.
  • Loopholes allow for “companionship and conversation” to be billed to Medicaid, with little evidence required.

• Proliferation of Home Healthcare Companies:

  • Columbus has become filled with home healthcare companies, often set up in nondescript office buildings, some with no windows and little sign of actual business.
  • Ferguson cites Daily Wire investigator Luke Rosiak, who found 94 separate Medicaid-billing companies in a single building, which billed taxpayers $66 million in just a few years. ([07:59])
  • Companies are often set up by people with questionable backgrounds, frequent tax problems, even criminal histories.

• Notable Schemes Uncovered:

  • Politicians running unreported home health businesses.
  • Janitorial LLCs suddenly rebranded as health providers.
  • Landlords enriching themselves by leasing to dozens of shell companies.
  • Repeat offenders (fraud, violence, theft convictions) running lucrative Medicaid businesses.
  • An accountant stripped of his license for public theft launching a $7 million Medicaid-billing company.

• Shell Companies & “Poverty Program Empires”:

  • Many businesses have no public-facing profiles, websites, or advertisements.
  • They achieve “full roster” of clients in their first month, sometimes using only one family member as both “employee” and “client,” with no evidence of services rendered.
  • Example: A 40-year-old Somali man is paid by Medicaid for “cooking for his own 65-year-old mother”; the only “proof” is paperwork filed by a willing doctor. ([11:47])

• Demographics & “Parallel Societies”:

  • Most company owners are foreign-born, with public records showing business transactions clustered in tight-knit immigrant communities.
  • Incidents described where company owners respond to journalistic inquiries with threats or accusations of racism.

2. Policy & Political Context

• Nonexistent Medicaid Caps & Lax Oversight:

  • Ferguson stresses that these home care benefits have “no monetary cap,” unlike programs such as food stamps—meaning the sky's the limit for potential fraud.
  • Eligibility is triggered by any doctor signing a form, with little follow-up.

• Republican Accountability:

  • Points out that the Ohio governor, Mike DeWine (R), and his appointees are ultimately responsible for oversight, undermining arguments that such fraud is a partisan issue.
  • “And again, this goes back to what I was saying about Republicans. The governor in Ohio is Mike DeWine. His appointees run the state.” ([15:15])

• New Federal Response:

  • The Trump administration (in 2026) is forming a Medicaid fraud task force, led by FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson and VP J.D. Vance, to tackle the issue—starting in Ohio.
  • “The Trump administration is now turning its sights to Medicaid fraud... and they want to start with Vance’s home state.” ([16:12])

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Memorable Quotes

• On the Systemic Nature of Fraud:

  • “Democrats have figured out how to steal and these immigrants and illegal immigrants in every state in America.” – Ben Ferguson ([04:53])

• On the Lack of Oversight:

  • “The payouts have been shrouded in secrecy, and now we understand why... a black box so that there could be kickbacks, waste, fraud, and abuse that we would never see.” ([05:10])

• On the New Welfare 'Queens':

  • “These new welfare queens aren’t the recipients whose low income qualify them by the way for poverty programs. They’re the companies that are getting rich off of those living in poverty.” ([06:53])

• On Fast-tracked Company Registrations:

  • “Sometimes the report says the company will have a quote, full roster of clients in its very first month, making many normal sane people wonder, like, where were these clients?” ([09:37])

• On Serial Fraudsters:

  • “These are not business geniuses. They often failed at a variety of other businesses before suddenly becoming millionaires all over again in the home health care field by billing the government for countless dollars.” ([09:11])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:38] – Introduction to the Ohio Medicaid fraud crisis
• [05:10] – How government secrecy enabled the scam
• [06:13] – Explanation of personal care billing and its loopholes
• [06:53] – Proliferation of fraudulent companies and case study examples
• [07:59] – Shell companies: the 94-company building and billboards
• [08:50] – Deep-dive on ownership backgrounds and repeat fraudsters
• [09:37] – Company "client roster" red flags
• [11:47] – Kickbacks and the role of foreign-born business operators
• [13:17] – “Parallel societies” and lack of oversight
• [14:51] – Role of paperwork and absence of spending caps
• [15:15] – Critique of Republican leadership in Ohio
• [16:12] – Trump administration's proposed crackdown
• [18:17] – Episode wrap-up

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Takeaway

Ben Ferguson’s exposé reveals Ohio as ground zero for a Medicaid home care fraud explosion, lifting the lid on an epidemic of shell companies, dubious actors, and untold billions wasted. With both Democratic and Republican leaders implicated in oversight failures, this is a bipartisan, systemic problem. Ferguson urges listeners to share the story: "People need to know that what we're witnessing now with fraud is not just in liberal states."

For those concerned about waste, abuse, and the integrity of social programs, this episode is a clarion call about the danger of unchecked government spending and the need for rigorous oversight—no matter the party in charge.

Transcript

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[Ben Ferguson]

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

Good Wednesday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update and we've got one massive story for you. This is shocking news coming out of a Republican state. The Vice President's home, Columbus, Ohio. We now have found out that the feds have been paying immigrants billions to literally hang out with their own family members. How did this even happen? And it's all coming from your tax dollars through Medicaid. I explain it all. America is entering the 250th year and the direction of this country is being decided right now. In our culture and our economy and who we choose to support matters more than ever. Most wireless companies don't care who you are or what you believe. They just want your money. Patriot Mobile, they're different. For more than 12 years, they've stood with Americans who believe freedom is worth defending. Funding the Christian conservative movement. When others stay silent, that's what they do. So here's the deal. You don't have to give up quality or service when you switch to Patriot Mobile. They deliver premium priority access on all three major U.S. networks. So you'll get the same or better coverage than you have today. Think switching is a hassle? It isn't anymore. In 2026, you keep your number, keep your phone or Upgrade and their 100 US based support team can activate you in minutes. Still paying off a device, Patriot Mobile even offers a contract buyout. This is a defining year. We must work together to save our country. So go to patriot mobile.com Ben47 or call 972-patriot and if you use the promo code Ben47, you'll get a free month of service. That's patriot mobile.com Ben47 or 972 Patriot and switch. Today it's the 47 Morning Update and it starts right now.

Story number one.

Fraud is something we are seeing that is now being exposed at levels that none of us could have actually imagined, even after what we'd already found in Minnesota. Now, there's a lot of people that thought, well, this is just fraud. That's going to happen in extreme places where there's hardcore liberals. We're now saying that is not true. I'm going to take you to Ohio and I'm going to tell you about this story. I'm going to ask you at the very beginning share this story on social media. All right. Because people need to know that what we're witnessing now with fraud is not just in liberal states. Democrats have figured out how to steal and these immigrants and illegal immigrants in every state in America. Now let me set the stage for you. Just before the Department of Government Efficiency closed its doors. It made a quiet move, keyword, quiet move, that may end up its most lasting impact on the federal deficit. Doge published a massive trove of data in February that for the first time lets the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for now. For decades, all right, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy and now we understand why. One of the largest government programs, in essence, was a black box that the government made that way so that there could be kickbacks, waste, fraud and abuse that we would never see. Now this interesting article that's been put out by a man, Luke Raziak. He spent the last two months digging into the numbers and what he found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars he says he's ever encountered in his two decades as an investigative journalist. Now this has become part of a Medicaid millionaires daily wire series and it's brilliant. I would, I would tell you to go look at it. It's now exposing billions of dollars in dubious personal services payments where people are paid to spend time with their own families. Again, this is not a joke. So he set his sights on Ohio, which like Minnesota had been granted waivers to expand Medicaid well beyond its original purpose. Now, under the guise of health care, Ohio pays people to go to Medicaid beneficiaries homes to, to perform what they describe as homemaking and chores like cooking and cleaning. Now here's what's interesting. The people performing the these services, these quote, personal services, the tasks don't even have to be healthcare workers and in many cases are actually relatives of the actual Medicaid patient. Now according to the Daily Wire data analysis, Ohio spent a billion dollars alone on home healthcare in 2024. That's the last year that we've got data and we expect that number to go higher in 2025. Now, since these services are performed inside private residences, okay. There is no way to know whether the workers win at all or what they're actually doing in exchange for the billion dollars of your tax dollars. There's also an infinite number of small black boxes inside a black box. And this is the second warning. There are multiple signs that the service provided and billed the government was sometimes just companionship and quote, conversation. Like that's an actual line. So we are paying people to hang out with family members. I, I wish I was joking. I'm not. As people have realized now. And these fraudsters are just doing this now, not like recently. This has been going on for years. We just looked the other way. What they Realized the United States government will basically pay you to do anything as long as there's paperwork around it. They will literally pay you to hang out with your own family members. Let me give you another example of this. Just in northeast Columbus, they have seen its economy replaced by businesses that build Medicaid. And Columbus, Ohio is a city with the second largest you ready Somali population in the country. Where's number one? Minneapolis St. Paul. That it has become on the surface the most, quote, unhealthy city on planet Earth, quote. Well, if the government is going to pay you to do it. One home healthcare operator told the reporter, people see it as lucrative, so they just jump on it. And when no one's stopping it, why wouldn't you do it? Now, these new welfare queens aren't the recipients whose low income qualify them, by the way, for poverty programs. They're the companies that are getting rich off of those living in poverty. There are even massive billboards up in Columbus. One of the billboards shows a looks like a daughter and a mother on their porch holding hands. And this is what the billboard says, caring for a loved one at home, question mark. Get paid, get support. Then it says for you to go to careforth.com so you're driving down in Cleveland, less than 40 seconds, you can come across endless home health care companies. You have capital home health. You have continental home health. You have dynamite home health. You've got the, the Ohio senior health care home health care. You have entire buildings throughout the city that are filled entirely with what appear to be identical businesses. These enormous complexes that have now been put out and exposed and pictured. One of them is on Bush Boulevard. It lacks windows, and that would be a problem for most office building. But there's almost no one in that office building. What is Inside, however, is 94 different companies signed up to to bill Medicaid, each with a tiny office often marked with a sheet of paper proclaiming some generic company name, ending in Home Health llc and sometimes another piece of paper claiming the employees had just stepped out for a break, but they never come back. Now, the building alone billed taxpayers 66 million in the span of a few years, the records now show. And if you pick the owner of the Columbus home healthcare company at random and look them up in the public records, you're likely going to go down an endless rabbit hole. Years of unpaid taxes as well as debts, okay, you're going to find that immediately, sometimes even criminal records. And an astonishing number of LLCs created in other industries, as if the millions they take from Medicaid are just a side gig. They actually went to several of these rabbit holes and they, they started to expose things. Let me give you an example of what they found. Number one, a politician who funded an 11 million home healthcare company that he appeared to run part time without even mentioning it in his political biography, who funded his campaign with massive donations from other home healthcare owners. That's the politician. Okay. You also had a woman who reinvented her Janitorial LLC as a health provider. Not a joke. And then build Medicaid. Nearly $100,000 the first month and she got the cash. You had a landlord who by the way bought airplanes after running space to hundreds of home health care companies that build Medicaid a quarter of a billion dollars. Yeah, that's really happening. Your tax dollars. You had a million dollar Medicaid business that was owned by a couple who repeated fraud, violence and had theft convictions repeated. And that's who the government's sending your tax dollars to. You had another man who went to prison for Medicaid fraud, but told the government he was too broke to pay restitution. Well, his neighbors and associates presided over a poverty program empire that made him rich. You also had an accountant who lost his license for stealing public funds, then opened a $7 million home healthcare company using the address of a convicted money launderer's teenage son. This is not a joke. These are the people that are doing this and they're getting rich with your tax dollars. Now these are not business geniuses, okay? They're nor people with any training or specialty in the field of health. They often failed at a variety of other businesses before suddenly becoming millionaires all over again in the home health care field by billing the government for countless dollars. Sometimes the report says the company will have a quote, full roster of clients in its very first month, making many normal sane people wonder, like, where were these clients? Where they come from? How do you get to max capacity in one month? The companies don't have websites either or appear to advertise at all. They just randomly fill up and maximize billing to the government. They can't stand out for their thousands of rivals based on price unless they pay kickbacks because the government pays the same to everyone. So that becomes the second part of the scheme. You sign up a bunch of people really, really fast, you give them a little kickback and bam, you make millions of dollars. What's also interesting about what's happening in Columbus is nearly every owner of the home healthcare companies in Columbus appear to be foreign. They live in A parallel society where every associate in the public records also has a foreign name and all their business transactions are conducted with other foreigners. When asked one that home health care companies did, one man threatened journalists. Who cares? Do you guys pay my bills? I'm going to tell everybody you guys are racist was the response from that home healthcare company. Now the government by the way is not and likely has no ability to monitor all the people and the it writes millions of dollars of checks to in Columbus. Apparently that's so they're just saying we'll just keep sending the checks. They all by the way share combinations of just a few names like Ahmed, Muhammad and Muhammad Ahmed. Documents reviewed by the Daily Wire show individuals will spell their names multiple different ways within a single document. And many of them left their birthdays as January 1st because their birth dates are unknown. So they just put down January 1st and then we send them millions of your tax dollars. The business model is simple. From what we've now seen from these documents, I'll give you a perfect example. They had a 40 year old Somali migrant who gets paid for spending time with and maybe cooking for his own 65 year old mother. The middleman is one of thousands of home health firms that have the NPI numbers necessary to then build Medicaid. The 40 year old becomes an employee of the of that company but has no client other than his mother. There is no way to verify whether he actually even provides the services to his mom unless his own mother is willing to testify against him. I think we all know that's not gonna happen. This poverty program is different from things like food stamps because it has no monetary cap. Let me say that again. It has no monetary cap. And it and its extent is decided not by the politicians but by any doctor who's willing to sign a form saying you could use some help around the house. It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt an entire state. Now for years there's been quote, efforts to rein in the waste that have nibbled around the edges, shaving off a million here, a million there. But skeptics and liberals argue that the cost cutting exercise was pointless because they said the lion's share of federal spending was locked up in non discretionary spending like healthcare. The implication was that there's no waste in that category and nothing that could be done about it. Even as the nation was, well, this program was going towards insolvency and they didn't care because they were getting paid and then the kickbacks were coming to the politicians, this was a blatant waste. And it happened within miles of the Ohio State Capitol. The governor there. And again, this goes back to what I was saying about Republicans. The governor in Ohio is Mike DeWine. His appointees run the state. In an age of artificial intelligence, the Medicaid system has seemed disinterested in even the most obvious red flags. Perhaps that's because it's largely run by the states, but with half or more of the billing being forced for you to pay as a federal taxpayer. Now, here's the good news. The Trump administration is now turning its sites to Medicaid fraud with a task force that's being led by the Federal Trade Commission chairman, Andrew Ferguson and the vice president, J.D. vance. And they want to start with Vance's home state. Because what we're seeing is this is happening, as I mentioned earlier, in a conservative state, not a liberal state. And that's the most important part of this entire story.

Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.

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[Ben Ferguson]

Wasn't that delicious? So good.

Your bill, ladies.

[Sophia Donner]

I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I assisted first. Oh, don't be silly. You don't be silly.

[Ben Ferguson]

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Okay.

[Ben Ferguson]

Rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors.

[Sophia Donner]

Shoot.

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