U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday denounced Cuba’s communist regime for running a massive healthcare fraud operation in South Florida.
Kennedy revealed details of the Cuban regime’s fraud operations in the U.S. during an interview with the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, during which he discussed the progress of his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda and his office’s efforts to reform food and drug guidelines, restore trust in public health agencies post-COVID, and combat deep corruption — particularly after the Biden administration had dramatically reduced HHS’s capacity to catch fraudsters.
Kennedy detailed that his office detected an entire durable medical equipment racket operation run by the Cuban regime in south Florida, where companies were supposedly selling wheelchairs and knee bracers and charging Medicaid for them, but all they actually had were lists of patients.
“We found one hotel that had 129 rooms, and every one of them was a durable medical equipment company,” Kennedy revealed.
“There are two times the number of durable medical equipment companies in South Florida as there are McDonald’s,” he continued.” Most of them don’t sell anything, they’re just there to steal from the federal government.”
The HHS Secretary pointed out that the Biden administration had gotten rid of the HHS’s Program Integrity Department, leaving the agency without the capacity for catching fraud. According to Kennedy, the Biden administration had cut the Integrity Department down from 80 people to just six for all 50 U.S. states and six territories.
Kennedy’s confirmation of a Cuban regime racket operation in South Florida comes days after Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz detailed to Fox News that his office believes that foreign national networks, including those from Russia and China, may be tied to U.S. hospice fraud.
“We believe that many of them are created by the Russian mafia. In fact, when you try to bust these folks, sometimes foreign nationals run back to their own country,” Oz said.
“In Flushing, [New York], I just mentioned we think the Chinese government might be involved. In southern Florida, where you have twice as many durable medical equipment suppliers as McDonald’s, we think the Cuban government’s involved,” he continued at another part of the interview.
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In February, Oz explained that CMS put a six-month nationwide moratorium on the approval of new durable medical equipment businesses in the U.S after the office found evidence of a massive multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving Cuban nationals. At the time, Oz emphasized that the fraud is “weaponized,” suggesting the scheme was orchestrated by the Cuban communist regime.
“Many of these businesses are owned by Cuban nationals, by the way. They bill falsely for $5 million for a month of fake stuff. They flee back to Cuba,” Oz told Fox News in February. “We try to go after the money. It’s already gone. It’s been shipped overseas, and everyone’s looking around to see who’s the last guy standing.”
“This fraud is weaponized … we can’t allow it to continue,” he stressed.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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