Years ago, a man walked into my family’s pharmacy in East Tennessee and pointed a gun at my face. There was no confusion about what was happening. Nobody called it a misunderstanding. Nobody suggested we should stay quiet to avoid offending anyone.
We called it what it was: robbery. And we responded accordingly.
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Today, however, when fraudsters steal billions from Medicare and Medicaid, Washington too often treats it as a bureaucratic inconvenience rather than a crime.
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When investigators uncovered $4 billion in fraudulent urinary catheter claims for products that never reached a single patient, the outrage was muted. When authorities found 288 home health companies registered to the same address, the response was more procedural than urgent.
And the reason is simple.
For decades, the Left has built a political shield around Medicare and Medicaid that discourages scrutiny. Ask questions about where taxpayer dollars are going, and you are accused of attacking the safety net. Demand accountability, and suddenly you are portrayed as being against the very people these programs were designed to help.
That false choice has protected fraudsters for far too long.
The results speak for themselves. In fiscal 2023, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for 43% of all improper federal payments — more than $100 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse.
The difference between the man who robbed my pharmacy and the people looting our healthcare system is straightforward.
The robber who walked into my store needed a weapon. The people exploiting Medicare and Medicaid have something even more powerful: a political environment that made serious oversight politically untouchable.
Let’s be clear about who suffers most from that failure.
I spent more than 30 years as a pharmacist serving families in East Tennessee. I know the senior trying to stretch a prescription for one more week because costs are tight. I know parents caring for a disabled child who depend on Medicaid services to get through the month. Medicare and Medicaid exist for those Americans.
And every dollar stolen through fraud is a dollar diverted away from them.
A system without accountability does not remain compassionate for long. It becomes vulnerable. It rewards bad actors willing to exploit complexity, bureaucracy, and political hesitation. That is exactly what happened after years of weak oversight and willful neglect. The fraud was not impossible to detect. Too often, it was simply politically inconvenient to confront.
President Donald Trump and Republicans are taking a different approach.
In 2025 alone, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services suspended $5.7 billion in fraudulent Medicare payments. The Department of Justice announced the largest healthcare fraud takedown in American history, involving $14.6 billion in alleged schemes and 324 defendants. Vice President JD Vance’s fraud task force has warned states that failure to oversee these programs properly could result in the loss of federal funding. Congressional Republicans have also enacted program integrity reforms through the working families tax cuts legislation and are pursuing additional measures in Reconciliation 3.0.
Democrats will predictably claim these efforts amount to “cutting Medicaid.” They said the same thing every time Republicans tried to strengthen oversight.
But protecting Medicare and Medicaid from fraud is not an attack on the safety net. It is what preserves the safety net.
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Every fraudulent claim paid out is money that never reaches the senior who earned those benefits, the disabled child who depends on them, or the struggling family with nowhere else to turn.
Protecting these programs from abuse is not a partisan issue. It is the minimum requirement for ensuring they remain solvent, effective, and worthy of the people they were created to serve.
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) is a licensed pharmacist who served East Tennessee communities for more than 30 years before her election to Congress. She serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including the Health Subcommittee, where she is vice chairwoman.
