Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / The Dead WERE Getting Paid, The Era of 'Pay First, Ask Questions Later' IS Over

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The Dead WERE Getting Paid, The Era of 'Pay First, Ask Questions Later' IS Over · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

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  Speaker 1: We didn't even have a protest. Not only no crime.
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  Speaker 2: Now there's a reason for all this, but part of
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: it was that people just wanted to pull together. This
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: country for like a four week period just pulled together
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: really amazing.
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  Speaker 1: And I didn't want to say it before the final.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't want to say how well it was doing.
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to get the final up with because you
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  Speaker 2: never know.
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  Speaker 1: It only takes. It only takes.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: But we just had the most successful World Cup in history.
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  Speaker 3: You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben ferguson.
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  Speaker 1: Good Wednesday morning.
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  Speaker 4: Nice to have you with us on the forty seven
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  Speaker 4: Morning Update, and we've got two big stories for you.
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  Speaker 4: First up, the Treasury Department has intercepted nearly ninety nine
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  Speaker 4: million of your tax dollars that we're going to go
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  Speaker 4: out in federal payments to dead people under the Trump
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  Speaker 4: Fraud Order. That has been stopped. And by the way,
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  Speaker 4: we're not done with fraud. Story number two, RFK Junior
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  Speaker 4: coming out and freezing more than a billion dollars in
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  Speaker 4: medicaid going to California and Minnesota.
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  Speaker 1: Also over fraud fears.
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  Speaker 4: The White House and the Administration working overtime to protect
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  Speaker 4: your tax dollars, and I have all of that for
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  Speaker 4: you in just a moment. But before we get to that,
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  Speaker 4: I want to ask you to join me in praying
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  Speaker 4: for Israel. The headlines they move on, but the hard
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  Speaker 4: ache can tear they do not. Iran and its terrist
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  Speaker 4: proxies continue to target Israel. Hesblad continues it to tax
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  Speaker 4: in the North, forcing families to live under constant threat.
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  Speaker 4: But Israel is not only defending her people, she is
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  Speaker 4: standing on the front lines against terror that threatens us
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  Speaker 4: all now. Even when the news crews leave the International
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  Speaker 4: Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain. Every day they
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  Speaker 4: are on the ground providing life saving aid near Israel's
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  Speaker 4: border with Lebanon. The hesblod drone recently struck the home
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  Speaker 4: of Yolina. She was widowed earlier this year and living
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  Speaker 4: alone now. She was trapped inside by that blast. Thankfully
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: she was not injured, but she remained displaced. As she
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  Speaker 4: put it, it's hard these days, and she also said,
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  Speaker 4: but I don't want to leave. Well, as Christians were
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  Speaker 4: called to stand with God's people and pray for those
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  Speaker 4: defending Israel and protecting the freedoms we hold dear, I
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  Speaker 4: want you to join the International Fellowship of Christians and
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  Speaker 4: Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for
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  Speaker 4: the soldiers, the families and civilians carrying the burden of
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  Speaker 4: this fight.
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  Speaker 1: Right now.
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  Speaker 4: All you have to do to get involved is go
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  Speaker 4: to pray IFCJ dot org and find out how important
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  Speaker 4: your prayers are and who and what you can be
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  Speaker 4: praying for. That's again, pray IFCJ dot org. It's a
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  Speaker 4: forty seven morning update and it starts right now.
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  Speaker 3: Story number one.
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  Speaker 4: Well, the US Treasury to Goartment has announced something that's
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  Speaker 4: truly incredible.
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  Speaker 1: They have intercepted.
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  Speaker 4: Nearly ninety nine million dollars of your tax dollars in
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  Speaker 4: federal payments that were about to go out to dead people. Yes,
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  Speaker 4: to seize individuals. They were going to get ninety nine
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  Speaker 4: million dollars. Not to be clear, it's not like the
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  Speaker 4: money like went to them and they didn't cast the checks.
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  Speaker 1: It's fraud.
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  Speaker 4: It was about to go out to the individuals that
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  Speaker 4: are dead, but people that are alive are cashing the checks. Now,
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  Speaker 4: that's almost one hundred million dollars of your money that
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  Speaker 4: was stopped before it ever left the Treasury Why did
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  Speaker 4: this happen, Well, it's simple because of a new verification
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  Speaker 4: system that flagged the recipients as dead. Now, this effort
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  Speaker 4: also stems directly from President Donald Trump's executive order. It
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  Speaker 4: directed federal agencies to strengthen payment verification and crack down
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  Speaker 4: on fraud across the government. Now, under that order, Treasury
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  Speaker 4: Departments Bureau of the Fiscal Service implemented a government wide
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  Speaker 4: screening process before the payments could actually be issued. Right,
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  Speaker 4: what a novel idea. Well, now we're getting the data
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  Speaker 4: back from this new initiative, and the numbers, well they're staggering.
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  Speaker 4: The Treasury Department reviewed more than eight hundred and eighty
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  Speaker 4: five million federal payments.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to just think about that number.
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  Speaker 4: Eight hundred and eighty five million federal payments. Now, that
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  Speaker 4: totaled two point seven seven trillion dollars. Again, this is
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  Speaker 4: how much waste there is in our government. We're given
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  Speaker 4: out two point seven seven trillion in tax dollars. Now,
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  Speaker 4: during the review, officials identified more than what they described
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  Speaker 4: is four thousand, nine hundred payments worth nearly one hundred
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  Speaker 4: million that were associated directly with deceased recipients. Now, instead
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  Speaker 4: of allowing these payments to go out the door, not
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  Speaker 4: only were they flagged and returned to the originating agencies
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  Speaker 4: for review.
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  Speaker 1: This is how the government should work now.
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  Speaker 4: The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessen, says, this is just the beginning.
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  Speaker 4: According to the Treasury Secretary, there's more bad news coming now.
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  Speaker 4: The department believes it can prevent roughly three hundred and
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  Speaker 4: fifty million in improper payments by the end of the year,
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  Speaker 4: so we're barely at the tip of the iceberg. He
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  Speaker 4: also pointed to Government Accountability Office estimates that are now
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  Speaker 4: suggesting that improper federal payments across government programs could total
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  Speaker 4: as much as five hundred billion annually. Not in total
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  Speaker 4: annual fraud of five hundred billion dollars a year. That
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  Speaker 4: means an essence, you're being over taxed by five hundred
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  Speaker 4: billion dollars and the money's being stolen and we shouldn't
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  Speaker 4: have to pay that much and taxes is another way
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  Speaker 4: to look at this. Now, half a trillion dollars and
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  Speaker 4: improper payments. That is money that adds up, and that
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  Speaker 4: is money that could also otherwise be used to reduce
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  Speaker 4: our deficit in a major way. The money could also
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  Speaker 4: be used to actually serve Americans, or, like I said
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  Speaker 4: a moment ago, what a brilliant idea give five hundred
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  Speaker 4: billion back annually to the tax payers. Now, it's important
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  Speaker 4: to understand what this announcement actually does and does not do. Now,
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  Speaker 4: the Treasury says these payments were identified because they were
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  Speaker 4: associated with dead payees or the official government term deceased payees.
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  Speaker 4: The announcement, they say, does not establish that every flag
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  Speaker 4: payment represented intentional criminal fraud. They say some improper payments
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  Speaker 4: can result from outdated records or even administrative errors or
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  Speaker 4: delays and agencies updating death information. And they said that's
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  Speaker 4: why the payments are being reached turned to the originating
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  Speaker 4: agency for investigation, rather than automatically being labeled criminal fraud.
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  Speaker 1: Now, what changes is this?
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  Speaker 4: The Government's ability to catch these payments before the money
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  Speaker 4: left the treasury is massive, and it's something that actually
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  Speaker 4: should have happened a long time ago. That capability has
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  Speaker 4: only been strengthened this year because of the expanded use
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  Speaker 4: of the Treasuries quote do not pay system and then
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  Speaker 4: their permanent access to Social Security Administration's full death master list.
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  Speaker 4: Now that gives agencies a much more complete database of
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  Speaker 4: reported deaths than was previously ever had again welcome to
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  Speaker 4: Washington bureaucracy.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 4: Congress earlier this year made that access permanent through the
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  Speaker 4: Ending and Proper Payments to Decease People Act. It allowed
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  Speaker 4: the Treasury to continue using those records to screen payments.
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  Speaker 4: In other words, if you're dead, you shouldn't be getting
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  Speaker 4: government cheese now. The Treasury had also previously demonstrated the
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  Speaker 4: value of this approach during a pilot program that prevented
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  Speaker 4: and recovered tens of millions of dollars in improper payments instantly.
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  Speaker 4: Officials have argued for years by the way that brought
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  Speaker 4: her access to the complete death records from the Social
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  Speaker 4: Security Administration would dramatically improve payment integrity. Yet Democrats fought
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  Speaker 4: it every step of the way.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder why now.
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  Speaker 4: This also illustrates a broader shift inside the federal government
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  Speaker 4: as well. Rather than waiting for inspector generals, for auditors
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  Speaker 4: to discover problems for months and then years later when
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  Speaker 4: they come forward, what the Treasury Department is doing is
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  Speaker 4: they're saying, hey, we're trying to stop questionable payments before
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  Speaker 4: they go out, instead of trying to find the money
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  Speaker 4: after it's already been stolen.
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  Speaker 1: That is a fundamentally different approach.
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  Speaker 4: And now, instead of well giving bad news to taxpayers,
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  Speaker 4: the government is actually protecting taxpayer dollars. Now, whether you
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  Speaker 4: are a Republican or a Democrat, most pollings say that
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  Speaker 4: Americans they agree with one thing. Taxpayer money shouldn't be
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  Speaker 4: going to people who are literally dead. And nearly ninety
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  Speaker 4: nine million has now been stopped before it went out
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  Speaker 4: the door. You want to know who's mad about this,
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  Speaker 4: the Democratic Party in the media. But the good news
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  Speaker 4: is most taxpayers understand that this is a big reminder
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  Speaker 4: that even small improvements in government payment systems can translate
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  Speaker 4: into significant savings, and that efforts to modernize fraud and
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  Speaker 4: detection AI is a great example of this, are likely
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  Speaker 4: to remain major focuses in Washington of the Trump administration, because,
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  Speaker 4: as Donald Trump put it, this is your tax dollars
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  Speaker 4: being stolen from you, and you should be mad as hell.
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  Speaker 3: Now story number two.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I also want to get to another story.
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  Speaker 4: RFK Junior is also getting in the fraud game in
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  Speaker 4: a big way to stop it. In fact, in a
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  Speaker 4: big announcement, the Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Junior
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  Speaker 4: announced Tuesday that the Trump administration is deferring more than
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  Speaker 4: one billion in medicaid payments to Democratic led California and
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  Speaker 4: Minnesota over high risk claims flagged in a crackdown on fraud.
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  Speaker 4: Take a listen to what RFK Junior had to say, and.
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  Speaker 5: Over two hundred million dollars for Minnesota. If those states
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  Speaker 5: want that money, they need to provide documentation that these
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  Speaker 5: payments are legitimate. Traditional financial verification use AI, advanced analytics,
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  Speaker 5: and other cutting tools to identify suspicious activity and potential fraud.
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  Speaker 5: In Minnesota, the funding involves fourteen high risk areas and
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  Speaker 5: Minnesota's own legislative auditor as identified as especially vulnerable to fraud.
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  Speaker 5: In California, we suspect much of the questionable spending involves
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  Speaker 5: in home services.
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  Speaker 1: And second, I'm.
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  Speaker 5: Pleased to announce that another significant step forward and the
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  Speaker 5: Trump Administration's battle to end fraud under my authority is
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  Speaker 5: AHHS Secretary, we are expanding the exclusion authority alto CMS,
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  Speaker 5: and the Office of Inspector General will be to be
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  Speaker 5: able to use that authority to remove bad actors from
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  Speaker 5: federal health care programs and in many cases to permanently
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  Speaker 5: ban them from returning. Unlike Medicare, estates control most of
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  Speaker 5: medicare it's funding and they provide the guardrails. We provide
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  Speaker 5: the funding. The states are responsible about for how they
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  Speaker 5: spend it, and by law, they must document how they
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  Speaker 5: spend federal dollars. And we have reasona believe that taxpayer
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  Speaker 5: money is being misused, especially through fraud. We have a
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  Speaker 5: duty to stop the payments, demand answers, and then follow
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  Speaker 5: the evidence wherever it leads. If Governor Kevin Newson or
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  Speaker 5: governor wants this funding release, all they have to do
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  Speaker 5: is fight basic documentation showing that these services are legitimate
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  Speaker 5: and not fraudulent. And that's common sense.
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  Speaker 4: Not only is it common sense, but the Senators for
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  Speaker 4: Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS holding back this eight hundred
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  Speaker 4: and sixty nine point seven million from California and then
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and ninety nine million from Minnesota, they say this,
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  Speaker 4: this is very simple. This is again being deferred, not cut,
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  Speaker 4: and both the states can actually be honest. All they
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  Speaker 4: have to do is documenting the claims meet the federal
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  Speaker 4: Medicaid requirements, the guidelines, and if you do that, you
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  Speaker 4: get the money. But what we also know from this
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  Speaker 4: press conference is the Governor Gavenusom and Governor Tim Waltz, Well,
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  Speaker 4: they're saying no, they're saying, we believe what we're doing
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  Speaker 4: is fine, and we're not going to play the game.
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  Speaker 4: And now you know why the actual payments are not
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  Speaker 4: going The CMS administrator, Doctor Oz also said CMS is
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  Speaker 4: done trying to chase down stolen and mischuse funds after
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  Speaker 4: they've already left the building before the check clears. We
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  Speaker 4: are delivering recordized savings for the tax payers. I also
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  Speaker 4: want you to hear more of what doctor Oz had
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: to say as well.
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  Speaker 6: Today we are calling on two states because this is
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  Speaker 6: a partnership.
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  Speaker 1: We need states involved.
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  Speaker 6: But there are two states in particular today there we
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  Speaker 6: have concerns about California and Minnesota. We want them to
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  Speaker 6: come alongside US federal partners to ensure that Medicaid dollars
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  Speaker 6: go to the services that are required by real people
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  Speaker 6: with real problems getting real care. Almost have to fit together.
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  Speaker 6: We have been covered, unfortunately already in the last eighteen months,
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  Speaker 6: billions of dollars that have been stolen from the American people,
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  Speaker 6: taxpayers and from patients who often have lost their health.
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  Speaker 1: Their lives in these scandals, and those.
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  Speaker 6: Have only been used those funds to pad the pockets
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  Speaker 6: of criminals.
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  Speaker 1: No muss, no more, it stops. Every quarter.
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  Speaker 6: For years, CMS has asked states to show us the
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  Speaker 6: receipts for their expenditures. In this administration, we took up
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  Speaker 6: to another level. We asked them to focus on targeted
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  Speaker 6: high risk services. Services that are often provided by your
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  Speaker 6: family offer provided by unlicensed individuals in unsupervised settings, doing
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  Speaker 6: things that we couldn't tell if they were actually happening.
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  Speaker 6: Those services, because they are I risk, demand that we're
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: more thoughtful, more insightful about how we audit them and
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  Speaker 6: decide that they're legitimate or not. These are the areas
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  Speaker 6: where the data tells us that there is fraud and
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  Speaker 6: waste and they're likely to occur. They do occur, and
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  Speaker 6: we're identifying it with unfortunate ease in the system. When
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  Speaker 6: there are signature and significant outliers, patterns that we've identified,
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  Speaker 6: anomalies that seem to happen again and again and again,
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  Speaker 6: federal law mandates requires us to pause that funding so
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  Speaker 6: that the states fixed the problems. That is a story
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  Speaker 6: behind today's announcements in Minnesota and California. Our reviews are
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  Speaker 6: going back just over the last few years, turn up
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  Speaker 6: the same recurring theme again and again every single quarter.
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  Speaker 6: Claims in these same high risk categories that the states
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  Speaker 6: have not yet been able to document fully and acceptably
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  Speaker 6: to the federal government, Claims that are unresolved, and flame
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  Speaker 6: claims that smell like fraud. And if it smells like fraud,
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  Speaker 6: we're not paying for it anymore. Today we are deferring
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  Speaker 6: over one billion in federal Medicaid dollars one billion dollars
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  Speaker 6: to Minnesota in California until they can substantiate their claims
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  Speaker 6: from this past quarter of audits.
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  Speaker 4: So there it is the President getting the right people,
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  Speaker 4: having them go after the waste, fraud and abuse, saving
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  Speaker 4: American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and doing it
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  Speaker 4: because Democrats refuse to do their job to protect your
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  Speaker 4: dollars before they send them out.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
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  Speaker 3: with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: in depth news. Also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and we will see you back here tomorrow.