Democrats routinely describe Republican efforts to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid program integrity as “healthcare cuts.”
A new hospice fraud story shows why that is exactly backward.
In his fifth podcast in the “How to Win 2026” series, Newt Gingrich identifies four immediate Republican healthcare commitments. One is to protect Medicare and Medicaid by stopping fraud and extending the life of both programs.
The hospice scandal is a real-world illustration of that argument.
The Associated Press reported on Linda Henry, a healthy 71-year-old California woman who discovered that someone had fraudulently enrolled her in hospice care. Because Medicare believed she was receiving end-of-life care, it began rejecting bills from her actual doctors.
Henry delayed appointments and a colonoscopy while she spent months trying to prove that she was not terminally ill. It took a year before she could resume seeing doctors normally.
Another woman was reportedly denied Medicare coverage for cataract surgery because she had been fraudulently enrolled in hospice. Unable to see clearly, she fell, broke her hip, and died two months later.
This is what happens when criminals are allowed to exploit programs intended for vulnerable Americans.
Federal officials estimate that Los Angeles County alone has generated approximately $3.5 billion in fraudulent hospice claims. More than 1,000 California hospices have been removed from Medicare since early 2025. On Thursday, the Justice Department also announced that a California hospice owner pleaded guilty to submitting more than $2.2 million in claims for people who were not terminally ill.
The hospice scandal involves Medicare, while many of the Republican program-integrity reforms Democrats attack apply to Medicaid. The programs and specific rules differ, but the principle is the same.
The Working Families Tax Cuts — which also stopped a scheduled tax increase on American families — strengthened eligibility checks, acted against duplicate enrollment, and required states to identify deceased beneficiaries and providers. Democratic leaders labeled the law’s healthcare provisions the “largest healthcare cut in history.”
But verifying that a provider exists is not a healthcare cut. Confirming that a service was delivered is not a healthcare cut. Stopping payments for deceased or duplicate enrollees is not a healthcare cut.
As Newt explains in the episode, every dollar sent to a criminal, fake provider, deceased enrollee, or someone no longer eligible is a dollar taken away from legitimate care. It cannot help a senior, a person with a disability, a low-income child, or a family in crisis.
Worse, as the hospice scandal demonstrates, fraud can prevent legitimate patients from receiving the care they need.
Stopping fraud is not cutting care. It is protecting care — and the people these programs were created to serve.
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How to Win 2026
How to Win 2026 is a five-part podcast series from Newt Gingrich laying out a strategy for a historic Republican victory in the 2026 midterms. From affordability and big government socialism to health care and the issues that unite an American majority, Newt examines the arguments Republicans must win to win the vote.
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