House Republicans are rolling out 14 bills aimed at closing Medicaid loopholes after a House Energy & Commerce Committee report released Tuesday warned that federally subsidized healthcare programs are being bled dry by fraud and abuse — costing taxpayers up to $521 billion a year across the federal government, according to Fox News.
The report, first obtained and covered by Fox News, states that federal healthcare programs are "rife with fraud and abuse — impacting every single American, in one way or another." A 2024 Government Accountability Office estimate cited in the report put the annual loss to fraud across federal programs at between $233 billion and $521 billion.
The committee's report does not offer its own separate estimate for Medicare and Medicaid fraud specifically, but it points to Medicaid as especially vulnerable because of structural weaknesses that make the program a target for fraudsters.
Republicans Move With 14 Bills
In response, House Republicans are introducing 14 pieces of legislation designed to close what they describe as gaps in the system. According to Fox News, the bills fall into three categories: legislation aimed at improving the identification of fraud in state and federal programs, efforts to shrink bureaucracy, and measures to make it easier for states to recover lost dollars while incentivizing them to pursue potential fraudsters.
House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital the scope of the problem is staggering.
"The amount of fraud that the Biden-Harris Administration allowed to go unchecked in government health programs is unacceptable. Every dollar stolen by fraudsters or wasted on improper payments is a dollar that cannot be used to support families in need who rely on these programs."
The committee's report frames the losses in blunt terms for ordinary Americans footing the bill through their taxes and rising healthcare costs.
"Taxpayers that fund benefit programs with federal and state taxpayer dollars are cheated by fraud, inflating healthcare costs that are passed along to everyone. 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."
Medicare and Medicaid together accounted for 24% of federal spending in 2024, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Fraud Crackdown Widens Across Agencies
The healthcare fraud push comes as the Trump administration's broader anti-fraud effort picks up steam in other corners of the federal government.
On Monday, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Fox News Digital his agency has identified roughly $500 million in fraud, waste and abuse in the federal health benefits program — a figure Kupor characterized as a starting point, not a finish line.
"OPM runs health insurance for about 8.9 million retirees and federal employees, and we spend about $80 billion a year. The $500 million, a little more than half percent, is a good number, but certainly we have a long way to go here to root out more fraud, waste and abuse."
Health insurance carriers in the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs reported preventing nearly $510 million in losses before or during payment and recovering an additional $21.9 million after claims were paid, according to OPM.
The White House anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance has reported $260.7 billion in fraud uncovered since Trump took office, with $72 billion in fraud stopped on an annualized basis, according to Fox News.
Kupor said OPM is conducting its own review of health insurance claims data for the first time, using it to analyze billing patterns across providers and plans to flag unusual prescribing habits, surgery rates and other anomalies that could signal overuse, misuse or potential fraud. Fox News Digital first reported in April 2025 that OPM, working with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, applied artificial intelligence to federal employee recordkeeping — the first implementation of AI at that scale in the federal government.
Senate Report Adds to the Pile
The problem extends beyond domestic benefit programs. The Daily Signal reported exclusively Monday on a new Senate report detailing billions in healthcare fraud, including a payment of almost $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to Russian fraudsters and Medicare scammers. WorldNetDaily, citing The Daily Signal, highlighted the report's finding that the losses amount to a redistribution of wealth that rarely draws protest from the Left.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, in a joint op-ed with Rep. Blake Moore, warned that Medicare and Medicaid fraud is costing taxpayers $1 million every minute, citing GAO figures, and urged action while families across the country struggle with high costs.
Our Take
Half a trillion dollars a year. That is what the federal government is bleeding to fraudsters, scammers and ghost providers while hardworking Americans pinch pennies at the grocery store and fight to keep the lights on. This is not a rounding error, and it is not a victimless crime. Every dollar that disappears into a fraudulent claim is a dollar that never reaches the family that needs care, and it is a dollar that gets passed back to you in the form of higher premiums and higher taxes.
The establishment told us for years that Medicare and Medicaid were untouchable, that any attempt to audit or reform them was an attack on the vulnerable. What the Energy & Commerce report actually shows is that the real attack on the vulnerable has been the federal government's refusal to police its own programs while the Biden-Harris administration looked the other way. Chairman Guthrie is right: unchecked fraud is unacceptable, full stop.
What is happening now is what happens when you stop treating federal agencies as sacred cows. The Vance task force is racking up hundreds of billions in uncovered fraud. Kupor's team is using AI to find billing anomalies nobody bothered to look for. DOGE is doing on the benefits side what it did in the records room. That is what accountability looks like.
The 14 bills are a start, but a start is not a finish. Patriots should be watching which members vote for these reforms — and which ones quietly find a reason to slow-walk them. Call your representative. Ask where they stand on ending the $1-million-a-minute heist. The answer will tell you everything.
