Imagine you are on Medicare and your primary provider discovers what turns out to be a treatable cancer. You get an oncologist referral and see them, and the next stage is to set up chemo, radiation, or immunotherapy treatments. However, when you attempt to do this, you keep getting denied. In the process of fighting these rejections, your treatable cancer only grows worse and becomes catastrophic. Finally, you discover that your Medicare health coverage was removed because you were entered into hospice care. This means you now only receive palliative care to manage your pain as you progress toward death, and are rejected for any treatments you might have received to combat the disease.
Sounds far-fetched? We have activists in Minnesota storming a church because they think the pastor is part of ICE, so we have pretty much blown the lid off what is far-fetched and what isn't. At this point in our history, there's not much that remains that is.
While Minnesota is under investigation for its rampant fraud, this Medicare fraud did not occur in Minnesota. Three guesses which blue state has turned hospice fraud into an art form.
Our sister site Townhall reported on this:
Following revelations of massive Medicare/Medicaid fraud in Minnesota, we're not surprised that other states have fraud problems, too. California, unsurprisingly, is one of them. Dr. Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, is now revealing that the fraud even impacts California's hospice program.
Hospice is designed for patients who are facing terminal illnesses with a life expectancy of less than six months. The focus of patients, their families, and the healthcare providers is quality of life and comfort, which means symptoms related to the terminal illness (e.g. pain, nausea) are managed but the terminal illness isn't treated.
Dr. Oz says doctors are being paid to send patients to hospice inappropriately.
Dive Deeper: Here We Go: DOJ Serves Subpoenas on Offices of MN Officials Including Walz, Frey, Ellison
Trump Officials Face Troubling Response When They Go to MN to Look Into the Rampant Fraud
Dr. Oz recently sat down with Jan Jekielek of The Epoch Times to discuss the changes in Medicare and health systems one year into the Trump administration. Oz spoke in detail about the difficulty of assessing the depth of California's Medicare fraud due to every level of the healthcare process being steeped in corruption.
Oz said to Jekielek:
What's happening in California is a tolerance, an acceptance of fraud. They realize they can pay doctors to move people into hospice. The hospice is designed for the last six months of your life. It means you're going to die. [...]
But what happens if 100 percent of the people in hospice survive six months? Like, nobody dies?
Jekielek: It doesn't sound like hospice.
Oz: Doesn't sound like hospice. Doctors are being paid to send people inappropriately to hospice. Now that's a problem, because if you're put into hospice you actually give up the rest of your healthcare protection. You no longer get traditional Medicare benefits. Because, you're in hospice. You're dying. So, we're not going to pay all these extra expenses for things that aren't going to benefit you, because you've decided to pull back. Voluntarily, you've decided that you're not going to go out there and try to get everything done for you possible to help you live longer; you've made peace with the end. But people are put on hospice who don't know it. They don't realize it. And so now, they don't have access to regular Medicare anymore. So, people are dying because they can't get care because they were falsely tricked into being on hospice.
Just when you think California cannot stoop any lower, they manage to find a new level of bottom. The crazy part: While this was obviously of great concern to Dr. Oz, what really blew his mind were the people who owned and operated the hospice centers.
Oz continued:
Now, that's a major concern for me. But then I began to look into how this can possibly happen. How is it that we've got seven times more hospice in California over the last several years? Do we have seven times more people dying? What's going on here?
And we began to realize, it's systemic fraud. Everyone decided not to do anything about this. We're not going to look at this, it's too painful, too difficult. Maybe some groups may benefit financially from not checking in to this. The doctors are getting engaged so much in hospice that it's beginning to undermine the basic ethos of the healthcare profession.
Oz then went on to tell the reporter an absolutely gobsmacking whistleblower story that will make you lose your faith in humanity:
WATCH:
The fraud in California is absolutely wild…
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) January 18, 2026
“People are being put on Hospice who don’t know it…and now they don’t have access to Medicare anymore. People are dying because they can't get care as they were falsely tricked into being on Hospice…”pic.twitter.com/DuRwJLiU4Y
Carpenters. Plumbers. Doctors and hospital board members. All on the take, all taking advantage of the federal government. The levels are difficult to measure because everyone is in on it, and no one is invested in seeing it come to an end.
In early January, Dr. Oz appeared on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle, where he said that Minnesota fraud is like the "JV" team, but "California is the varsity team."
WATCH:
“It’s billions of dollars, without question.”@DrOz says Minnesota’s Medicaid fraud is massive — but warns California is the ‘varsity team.’
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 7, 2026
“In California alone, $1.3 billion is already being paid back… taxpayers in Texas, Florida, and New York are wrongly footing the bill… pic.twitter.com/YruTtDtQL8
“It’s billions of dollars, without question.”
@DrOz says Minnesota’s Medicaid fraud is massive — but warns California is the ‘varsity team.’
“In California alone, $1.3 billion is already being paid back… taxpayers in Texas, Florida, and New York are wrongly footing the bill for illegal immigrants’ elective health care.”
Those Somali fraudsters are pikers compared to Californians' level of grift. In November, four California residents were convicted and sentenced to prison for bilking $16 million from Medicare on non-existent hospices.
Four California residents were sentenced to prison for their roles in defrauding Medicare of nearly $16 million through sham hospice companies and laundering the fraudulent proceeds.
Yesterday, Juan Carlos Esparza, 33, of Valley Village, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $1,825,012, and Susanna Harutyunyan, 39, of Winnetka, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $2,822,963.
In October 2025, Karpis Srapyan, 35, of Winnetka, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $3,203,574.
In September 2025, Mihran Panosyan, 47, of Winnetka, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $4,680,146.
Additionally, in May 2025, Petros Fichidzhyan, 44, of Granada Hills, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $17,129,060.
According to court documents, Esparza schemed with others, including co-defendants Fichidzhyan and Srapyan, to bill Medicare for hospice services that were medically unnecessary and never provided. From July 2019 until January 2023, Esparza, Fichidzhyan, and Srapyan operated four sham hospices, one of which, House of Angels Hospice, was owned by Esparza. Fichidzhyan, Esparza and Srapyan concealed the scheme by using foreign nationals’ names and personally identifiable information to act as straw owners for the hospices and to open bank accounts, submit information to Medicare and sign property leases. They also controlled and used cell phones in the names of the foreign nationals in furtherance of the scheme. In total, Medicare paid the sham hospices nearly $16 million.
Now the rest of the nation is footing the bill. If you weren't aware, California has an $18 billion budget deficit, and what's left of its tax base is storming the exit doors because the California legislature is yet again pushing another wealth tax. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) plans to embarrass himself by attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to challenge President Donald Trump on his economic agenda.
Newsom has made an art form out of his avoidance of the disastrous state of his state. The silver lining: Hair Gel's chances of becoming President of the United States get tanked even further with every billion in waste and fraud exposed.
Minnesota's fraud scandals have just ended Tim Walz's political career. California's should likewise end Gavin Newsom's.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) January 5, 2026
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media isn't interested in the facts; they're only interested in attacking the president. Help us continue to get to the bottom of the massive blue-state fraud epidemic by supporting our truth-seeking journalism today.
Join RedState's VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member