Federal spending riddled with waste, fraud and abuse is costing taxpayers billions – and Dr. Mehmet Oz says Medicaid is a glaring example, where crucial care is being siphoned away from the Americans who need it most.
“There’s about $14 billion we’ve identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid,” Oz said on this week’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government.”
Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged that Medicaid be “clean[ed] up” so it serves the people it was initially designed to assist – those at the dawn or twilight of their life, those “living in the shadows,” and those with disabilities who are unable to receive access to care because of others “clawing at the cloth” of the system.
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Republicans have urged the need to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in such medical assistance programs, much to the concern of those who say the “big, beautiful bill” on its way through Congress threatens healthcare for those in need.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has denied that the bill threatens such coverage, telling “Sunday Morning Futures” last month that safeguarding Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security remains a “big priority” for Republicans, but rooting out waste, fraud and abuse is essential to make these programs work more efficiently for all.
“We have to eliminate people, for example, on Medicaid who are not actually eligible to be there. Able-bodied workers… young men who should never be on the program at all,” he said at the time.
Oz told guest host Jackie DeAngelis that the problem goes even further, pivoting to the lack of a federal work requirement for Medicaid — something that exists in other federal programs like food stamps.
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“Let’s be clear what this means. It doesn’t mean you have a job. It means you’re trying to get a job – which is a good thing because we have twice as many jobs as there are people looking for them right now,” he said.
“But, if you don’t or can’t seek a job, you can volunteer somewhere. You can get an education. You can help out with other people inside the household. There’s many ways that you can chip in.”
“There is a work requirement for SNAP, right, the food stamps program. There’s a lot we can do. I think there’s a moral hazard if we don’t, because you’ve got people who are not working who could work, who should work, and it’s better for them and better for the country if they do.”
Oz also said states are currently “incentivized” to not cooperate with the federal government. He pointed to a provision under the program’s expansion that allows the federal government to cover up to 90% of the costs in some states compared to 50% or 60% in others.
That uneven structure, he argued, incentivizes states to keep more able-bodied adults enrolled in Medicaid to bring in more federal money.
“Right now, in many states, if you go to the hospital, and you’re an able-bodied person, the hospital gets paid more [for a Medicaid beneficiary] than if you’re a Medicare beneficiary. Now, how does that work?” he said.
“People work their whole life, chipped into Medicare, they get the program, they retire thinking they have got a great system, and the hospital tells them, ‘Listen, you guys don’t pay as well as the able-bodied folks on Medicaid who haven’t been able to get a job.’ So, in a way, we value them more, and that’s what ends up happening that disrupts the system.”
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