WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has charged over 450 people with healthcare fraud amounting to over $6.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, the sweeping action targets a wide range of alleged scams involving Medicaid, hospice care, wound treatment, and opioid distribution. It comes as part of the Trump administration’s intensified push against government waste and fraud in federal healthcare programs.
“This announcement marks the greatest combined federal and state effort in combating healthcare fraud in history,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told the Wall Street Journal today. “These alleged fraudsters will face justice.”
The charges include nearly 300 defendants accused of submitting more than $500 million in false Medicaid claims — a record number for such cases. Authorities also brought cases against about 90 medical professionals. The operation reached across 57 federal court districts and 41 states and territories, with participation from 46 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units. Officials reported seizing more than $127 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and other assets.
Orange County has been the site of several large healthcare fraud cases, including a 2026 Medi-Cal scheme involving nearly $270 million in false claims and more than $178 million paid out, plus a 2023 federal case out of Westminster and Garden Grove involving more than a quarter-billion dollars in claims and about $150 million in payments.
In September 2023, a federal indictment charged an Orange County doctor of osteopathy with submitting more than a quarter-billion dollars in claims tied to a pandemic program for uninsured patients, receiving about $150 million.
In August 2021, California officials said a Santa Ana pharmacy owner’s fraudulent overbilling totaled more than $1.8 million across Medi-Cal, CalOptima, and Medicare.
Healthcare fraud drains tens to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. system every year, making it one of the most expensive categories of fraud in the country. Estimates from government and anti-fraud groups typically suggest that roughly 3%–10% of all U.S. healthcare spending is lost to fraud, waste, and abuse, a range that can translate to well over $100 billion annually in a system with multi-trillion‑dollar expenditures. While no one has a precise figure, the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association notes that losses are “in the tens of billions” at a minimum, and some analyses put the upper bound above $300 billion.
On the enforcement side, federal agencies recover only a slice of that total each year, but the numbers are still significant. In fiscal year 2025, the Justice Department reported a record $6.8 billion in False Claims Act settlements and judgments, with about $5.7 billion tied specifically to healthcare cases. The Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program reported more than $3.4 billion in recoveries in its 2023 reporting, alongside thousands of criminal and civil actions and more than 2,000 individuals and entities excluded from federal healthcare programs for fraud and related misconduct.
