ABC, NBC Refuse to Cover Massive White House Moves on Fighting Medicare Fraud

Curtis Houck
May 14th, 2026 1:13 PM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

Flanked by members of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, Vice President JD Vance announced a series of moves Wednesday by the Trump administration to defer $1.3 billion in Medicare reimbursements to California for its refusal to tackle welfare fraud, demanding states prove they’re committed to addressing fraud, and a six-month moratorium on new hospices and home health care operations.

But when it came to the broadcast networks mentioning it on their lead Wednesday night and/or Thursday morning newscasts, there were crickets on ABC and NBC even though, in the case of the latter, they not only had a reporter — White House correspondent Monica Alba — in the room, but was called on first to ask a question about the issue at hand.

It’s not particularly surprising given that, as we reported on April 13, they have yet to even acknowledge the problem.

Wednesday’s CBS Evening News failed to cover it, but Thursday’s CBS Mornings did with a 41-second news brief kicking off the second half-hour and its “Caught Our Eye” block.

Correspondent Tom Hanson framed the announcement as the government following up on CBS’s reporting: “We begin with a development in a story we brought you involving allegations of massive health care fraud. A CBS News investigation raised red flags about more than 700 potentially fraudulent hospice companies in Los Angeles County. Now, the Trump administration is taking action.”

Hanson added Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Oz “announced the administration is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicare payments to California” cause “[t]hey said the state had not taken fraud seriously and, on top of that, they are pausing all new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies.”

“Vance and Oz said the hold will last six months while they investigate the potential fraud,” he concluded.

Oz explained in the press conference the logic behind the withholding of Medicare payments to California, including the fact that the top five percent of state billers accounted for $630 million, plus the state’s rate of “growth of spending in personal care services, in home services, is twice the rate of the average of the rest of the country”:

He also delivered a prebuttal of sorts to those questioning why there’s a nationwide moratorium and not just in states the Trump administration deems problematic:

Here was Vance explaining in full the $1.3 billion deferment to the Golden State (click “expand”):

We’re announcing that the federal government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the State of California. And the simple reason is because the state of California has not taken fraud very seriously. And because of that, we see a lot of the consequences that I just referenced. And again, let me let me highlight the fact that this really is two separate victims. So, there are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously. But also you have people who have been prescribed medications that they don’t even need. Sometimes they’ve had drugs put into their bodies that they don’t need, because fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications. So, think about this. You’re just a person trying to go see a doctor. You assume that your doctor is doing the right thing, but these fraudulent health care providers are getting rich by giving people medications they don’t even need. It’s defrauding of the American taxpayer, but it’s a violation of the trust that should exist between every American and the people who prescribed the medications. That’s one thing that we want to we’re targeting, and this is why we’re taking this action, is because we want California to get serious about this fraud.

When it came to imploring all 50 states to be more proactive, Vance explained how “[t]he Medicaid system that exists in the United States is really 50 separate systems” with “the federal government pay[ing] most of the Medicaid money, but then each of the individual states actually administers the Medicaid program” and thus are responsible for ensuring federal tax dollars are properly stewarded.

Vance said that, while there is bipartisan attention given in a blue state like Maryland and a red state like Ohio (thanks to the Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak), Hawaii and New York are two states that have not been as committed to investigating raud with the former having zero convictions in recent years and only nine indictments in the latter, which receives $100 billion from Medicaid.

He said to combat this, the federal government has communicated to all 50 states to explain and show what they’ve done to take the matter seriously:

Because it’s the Trump administration and even more so since we’re in an election, Disney’s ABC and Comcast’s NBC want nothing to do with basic, good-government journalism.

Instead, Wednesday’s World News Tonight featured this bizarre display from anchor David Muir in China:

Over at NBC, Thursday’s Today had a look at the invasive spotted lanternfly, so they covered fraud of sorts via a bug, but not fraud from humans!

To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 14, click “expand.”

CBS Mornings
May 14, 2026
7:21 a.m. Eastern [TEASE]

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Ahead; Healthcare Fraud Update]

VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: And we have a major update on an investigation we brought you about health care scammers. What the Trump administration says it is doing about the fraud.

(....)

7:30 a.m. Eastern

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Caught Our Eye; Feds Pause New Medicare Enrollements]

TOM HANSON: We begin with a development in a story we brought you involving allegations of massive health care fraud. A CBS News investigation raised red flags about more than 700 potentially fraudulent hospice companies in Los Angeles County. Now, the Trump administration is taking action. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance and Medicare Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced the administration is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicare payments to California. They said the state had not taken fraud seriously and, on top of that, they are pausing all new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies. Vance and Oz said the hold will last six months while they investigate the potential fraud.

Donor Privacy Policy