{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2026/8/sen-rick-scott-discusses-protecting-medicaid-closing-fraud-loopholes-at-budget-committee-hearing", "Sen. Rick Scott Discusses Protecting Medicaid, Closing Fraud Loopholes at Budget Committee Hearing", "2026-08-04", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "Senate", "FL", "Rick Scott", "S001217", "www.rickscott.senate.gov", "rickscott", "https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/press-releases/", "page_html", "WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Rick Scott joined a Senate Budget Committee hearing focused on protecting Medicaid from waste, fraud, and abuse.\n\nDuring the hearing, Senator Scott questioned witnesses Dr. Brian Blase, President of Paragon Health Institute, and Jonathan Ingram, VP of Policy and Research at the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), about how fraudsters are able to abuse the public trust to enrich themselves through Medicaid loopholes \u2013 and how some states are even fleecing the federal government in the process.\n\nTo watch Sen. Scott\u2019s full line of questions, click HERE.\n\nHIGHLIGHTS\n\nFRAUD AND STATE RESPONSIBILITY:\n\nSEN. SCOTT: \u201cWhen you think about it, the federal government\u2019s goal was to take care of, especially the pregnant women, kids, the disabled. The states have lost focus because there\u2019s so much money and the providers have lost\u2014 because there\u2019s so much money here for the able-bodied adults.\u201d\n\nDR. BLASE: \u201cThe federal government is encouraging states to discriminate against the most vulnerable. The most problematic [provider taxes] are where you get a local health facility that transfers money to the state. The state then uses that as its payment back to the facility and then leverages the federal dollars. So, it\u2019s a way for states to use the Medicaid financing system to benefit the governmental providers at the expense of the taxpayer\u2026 In California\u2026 they\u2019ll pay the government ambulance providers more than three times what they pay the private ambulance providers through the Medicaid program.\u201d\n\nTHE MEDICAID FRAUD CONTROL UNIT PROGRAM:\n\nMR. INGRAM: \u201c[Fraud is] not a new problem; it\u2019s been going on for years. It definitely worsened under President Biden. States are getting more funding from taxpayers than ever for these [investigative] units and getting worse results. Investigations are down, indictments are down, convictions are down, recoveries are down\u2026 This is a longstanding problem, and nobody really seemed to care about it until President Trump.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-08-05T07:37:37Z", "2026-08-05T07:38:44Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2026/8/sen-rick-scott-discusses-protecting-medicaid-closing-fraud-loopholes-at-budget-committee-hearing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.083567040041089, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}