Photo: WEWS.
Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to overhaul the state’s Medicaid system to combat unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, while GOP leaders blame Gov. Mike DeWine for a lack of oversight.
At a hotel in downtown Columbus, Ramaswamy, joined by his running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, addressed the need to combat waste, fraud and abuse of public money.
“When we have criminals, fraudsters and thieves demanding money for themselves, it diverts money from those for whom these programs were intended, and that is a problem,” Ramaswamy said.
After right-wing news site The Daily Wire published a story about the rampant fraud, Ramaswamy announced his plans to combat the yet unconfirmed abuses.
“Our state of Ohio does not yet have the full incentive to make prosecuting Medicaid fraud a top priority, as it will under my administration,” Ramaswamy said.
Legislative leaders say home health care providers paid by Medicaid aren’t doing their jobs.
“We need leadership to make sure we take this issue seriously,” said McColley, one of the state’s top leaders.
DeWine and his office have been repeatedly criticized for failing to investigate fraud.
DeWine denied that it was a widespread problem, but said there have been nearly 1,100 Medicaid fraud convictions since 2019, when he took office.
“I understand that there may be people in Ohio who are just learning that there is Medicaid fraud that needs to be fought consistently,” DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said in an interview. “Mike DeWine has never been one of them. Since becoming attorney general in 2011, he has consistently fought against Medicaid fraud and continues to do so as governor.”
Days before the article was published, DeWine sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to engage with the Trump administration and try to exploit a more tough revalidation process.
This week, the governor also issued an executive order on tools he says will support prevent fraud, such as requiring providers who are at higher risk of committing fraud to confirm registration more frequently.
His team says that since 2011, DeWine has helped obtain 2,378 Medicaid fraud indictments and 2,216 convictions. A total of $645 million was recovered, according to the state.
“There is no real evidence (of fraud),” said House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati.
If the allegations are substantiated, Isaacsohn said Republicans are responsible.
“The idea that the people who are currently in government, who have been running the government for the last decade, are going to stand up and say we have fraud, waste and abuse is rampant – fingers should be pointing straight at themselves and saying, ‘They didn’t do their job,’” he said.
We asked Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, about how he got rid of the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, the body that deals with waste, fraud and abuse, in the state’s last budget.
“If there was fraud, how can you not be held accountable for it?” we asked both him and McColley.
Huffman responded by sharing the history of how he created the Senate Committee on Medicaid in 2021 and then in 2025 the creation of the House Committee on Medicaid.
“But creating a separate body and a separate office. I think it sounded good at first to the people responsible for creating it, but it was fundamentally ineffective in trying to get to the bottom of these issues,” Huffman said.
Each Medicaid committee considers bills affecting the system; their purpose is not surveillance.
Some providers, such as MonArk ABA Therapy in northwest Ohio, fear that making drastic changes to Medicaid will mean less access.
“We are the ones who bear the brunt of this penalty,” said co-founder Sheiletha Quinn. “These types of overhauls, when we can’t see the impact they’re having on small businesses in rural communities that are doing the right thing, make us look like we’re not.”
She said the Medicaid process is already confusing, and the loss of the oversight committee made the situation even worse. The GOP, along with cuts to this body, has tried to cut Medicaid every budget cycle.
We asked McColley if this was another way to cut Medicaid.
“No, no, these are allegations of fraud that should be taken seriously. These are taxpayer dollars. This is not the way to cut Medicaid,” he replied. “I think we have already seen that there is overspending in the Medicaid system, just based on the resources and information that we have been able to obtain.”
The governor’s team says they are investigating, but say nothing has been proven yet.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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