Balancing the Budget by Dealing With Fraud?

6/21/26 New York Post:

A fugitive accused of running a $1.2 billion Medicare fraud conspiracy has been captured overseas and returned to the United States, becoming the second suspect taken into custody from the FBI’s new “Most Wanted Fraudsters” list.

Federal officials said Herbert Leon Kimble, 60, was arrested in the Philippines after allegedly evading authorities for nearly two years.

Prosecutors said Kimble operated a healthcare fraud scheme that generated more than $1.2 billion in Medicare charges and affected thousands of beneficiaries, many of them elderly.

Authorities said the operation used call centers to steer patients toward medically unnecessary orthopedic braces.

Kimble pleaded guilty in 2019 to multiple federal offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, healthcare fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, making false claims and offering kickbacks and bribes.

Okay, I know it is only a billion dollars, but to paraphrase Sen. Dirksen, "A billion here, a billion there, after a while it adds up to real money." 

Not a Small Fraud Problem

 Over on X, I have been seeing TDS sufferers complaining that allegations of Medicare fraud are overblown and are just a small number of bad actors. The scale of bad actors matters.

5/14/26 CBS News:

The owner of a healthcare software company was convicted of massive Medicare fraud on Thursday, the Department of Justice said, ending what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called "one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history." ...

Blackman and his co-conspirators billed Medicare and other federal healthcare benefit programs over $1 billion throughout the course of the scheme, the Department of Justice said. Medicare and the other programs paid out more than $450 million.

What Could Possibly Have Gone Wrong at the Democrats' Money Machine?

Tweet last year by CEO of FTX fraud associate:

"nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is"

And boy did that work out well.