[FOX] House GOP lawmakers are rolling out a slew of new bills after a bombshell report found that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are potentially being targeted by fraudsters every year.
As people across the U.S. are battling high costs that make it hard to make ends meet, a report released Tuesday by the House Energy & Commerce Committee warns that federally subsidized healthcare programs are rife with fraud and abuse — "impacting every single American, in one way or another."
While no estimate for Medicare and Medicaid fraud exists specifically, the report noted, a 2024 estimate by the Government Accountability Office said $233 billion to $521 billion taxpayer dollars going to federal programs are lost to fraud every year. Federal healthcare programs accounted for 24% of federal spending in 2024, according to the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities.
Medicaid specifically is rife with vulnerabilities making it susceptible to fraud, the report said, which is why House Republicans are rolling out 14 bills aimed at closing loopholes in the system, shrinking bureaucracy, and making it easier for states to recoup lost dollars while also incentivizing them to go after potential fraudsters.
"Taxpayers that fund benefit programs with federal and state taxpayer dollars are cheated by fraud, inflating healthcare costs that are passed along to everyone," the committee's report states. "Every dollar stolen from federal health care programs is a dollar that is not spent on high quality healthcare for those that need it most."
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