Ramaswamy, Ohio Republicans Address Fraud in Press Conference

In the wake of a recent investigative report from The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak on suspected Medicaid fraud in Columbus, Ohio, Republicans held a press conference on Tuesday to lay out their plans for tackling the issue. Rosiak also spoke, discussing his findings.

As Rosiak recapped, Ohio has home health centers, a program allowing people to get paid for offering “companionship,” with the Medicaid beneficiaries often being their own relatives.

“The issue is that if that many people were really sick, Columbus, Ohio would have the least healthy population in the entire world. The companies are farming elderly poor people for cash. You research the owners and you find absurd red flags. They’re working other full-time jobs while billing the government $10 million a year. They’re not paying their own taxes,” Rosiak revealed.

He also illustrated how such examples of fraud “happened 10 miles from the [Ohio] Department of Medicaid building,” as he called for “competence” and a particular need for GPS tracking.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced last week a series of fraud prevention initiatives, including requiring GPS tracking.

Calling out the Ohio Department of Medicaid, especially former director Maureen Corcoran, was a common theme for speakers in attendance, including Ohio Auditor Keith Faber and Ohio Speaker Matt Huffman. “When you have a director who simply isn’t going to follow the law, you have the kinds of catastrophes that we have right now,” Huffman said.

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When it was his turn, Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor, made clear the target is not the law-abiding people on Medicaid, but criminals who abuse the system, which “diverts money away from those for whom these programs were intended.”

Fixing the problem is where Ramaswamy touted his role as a businessman and a political outsider, noting that “it’s going to take somebody from the outside, a different set of experience, with a different set of perspectives, different skills” and “the right relationships to navigate this problem.” He also referenced his relationship with the Trump administration, including Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Director Mehmet Oz.

Ramaswamy explained that states, including Ohio, do “not yet have the fully aligned incentive to make the prosecution of Medicaid fraud a top priority, as it will be for my administration. Why is that? It has to do with the way the federal government deals with state governments”.

He mentioned that for every dollar of savings from combating Medicaid fraud, Ohio keeps 35 cents. One of his “first solutions” he’d implemented as governor would be making a deal with the federal government to keep at least 65 or 66 cents on the dollar, creating “skin in the game.”

There’s also a plan “to simplify the bureaucracy that administers Medicaid,” as 10 different government agencies currently administer payments.

That simplification, Ramaswamy added, will increase transparency and opportunities for him to work with Faber, who though his term as auditor is coming to a close, he is the Republican nominee for attorney general.

Ramaswamy noted the two of them are “aligned on this to make the prosecution of Medicaid fraud a top law enforcement priority in the state of Ohio in the first six months of 2027.”

Ramaswamy still wants action in the next six months under the current administration. “So nothing that I’m saying is a substitute for taking action starting this month, starting this year in 2026,” Ramaswamy made clear.

He argued that the “struggle” of health care for families “ends with the easiest solution that a governor and a state government can deliver: Prosecute the fraud committed by criminals. take that money and put it in the pockets of law-abiding Ohioans. It’s not complicated. Crush fraud, bring down costs.”

Arguing that such a pitch “isn’t controversial,” he also made clear it’s not merely for his voters or for Republicans, but that he is bringing down the health-care costs for all law-abiding citizens in Ohio, tying in the American dream, as he’s done before.

As for what’s next, Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley, Ramaswamy’s pick for lieutenant governor, spoke of pending legislation.

Huffman pushed for passing reform legislation by June 10. “We’re going to pass a strong Medicaid reform bill,” he said, which will include initiatives mentioned by DeWine last week.