A Brooklyn agency owner just went to federal prison for billing Medicaid $100 million for home health workers who were on Caribbean cruises.
New York has hundreds of agencies just like it.
And Dr. Oz just caught the one move that turns the whole operation into a permanent Democrat money machine.
Dr Oz Named the New York Medicaid Scheme and Dared Albany to Deny It
Dr. Oz laid out the union scam being run in New York during an appearance on CNBC.
The number one job in New York State is personal care services – ahead of retail by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1.
"Almost half a million people in that state are being paid to carry groceries upstairs for their parents or for their neighbor," Oz said. "Why? Because it's a jobs program for the state."
Then he named who just found the jackpot.
"I've just found out that they're beginning to unionize these personal care services. The big union here, the service union, 1199, is unionizing these personal care services."
"It will double the size of the union."
Unionizing that workforce, Oz said, "means, now, we're paying union dues, and that goes back to support the political patronage, that, unfortunately, in the case of New York, is being supported by one party."
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program – CDPAP – started in 1994 to let elderly New Yorkers hire family members as caregivers instead of going to nursing homes.
By 2019 it cost $2.5 billion a year.
By 2023 it cost $9.1 billion – nearly four times as much in four years.
New York's total Medicaid bill now runs over $90 billion annually – 36% above the national per-capita average.
How Hochul Handed 1199 SEIU Control of a 9 Billion Dollar CDPAP Program
Last year New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul announced a "reform" consolidating the program's 600-plus payroll middlemen into a single statewide manager.
She said it would save $500 million a year.
Hochul's Health Department quietly required bidders to declare themselves "joint employers" of CDPAP caregivers – the precise legal designation needed to make unionization possible.
When those companies asked whether collective bargaining was coming, Albany refused to answer.
It didn't need to.
The Empire Center for Public Policy documented the arrangement: putting a single company in charge of a $12 billion program paved the way for 1199 to unionize hundreds of thousands of CDPAP caregivers and collect dues from every one of them.
1199 SEIU already represents 75,000 home care workers in New York under union contracts.
Adding CDPAP would more than double that number overnight.
In March 2026 – the same month Oz's investigation letter arrived in Albany – 1199 began formally sending organizing letters to CDPAP workers.
The Manhattan Institute's Ken Girardin named the stakes: "This would be nothing more than an excuse to skim cash and feed 1199 SEIU's political apparatus. The White House needs to step in because this would be one of the worst abuses of taxpayer money in the history of the Medicaid program."
1199 spent decades funding Democrat campaigns in New York.
They backed Bill de Blasio. They backed Kathy Hochul.
The New York Medicaid Fraud History Albany Buried
Federal prosecutors convicted a Brooklyn home health agency owner in 2023 for $100 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims.
Her workers billed for patient care while one was at a New Jersey vineyard and another was on a Caribbean cruise.
The DOJ identified that pattern across multiple agencies from 2015 to 2020.
Over the last decade, investigators traced at least $179 million in outright theft from CDPAP, with another $1 billion drained by middlemen who charged the state as much as $1,000 per enrollee per month while doing nothing beyond cutting checks.
New York's Medicaid spending on personal care services in fiscal year 2024 was $18.5 billion – nearly 70% more than every other state combined.
Oz sent a formal letter to Hochul on March 3 demanding documentation on how New York handles fraud – with a direct warning that federal Medicaid payments would be withheld if she didn't answer.
The federal government already froze $259 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over similar concerns earlier this year.
Hochul called the investigation politically motivated.
Oz was not moved: "We cannot allow this to happen. And the president and the vice president, who leads the White House anti-fraud task force, aren't going to tolerate it."
Your tax dollars. Their union dues. Their politicians. Their Medicaid budget.
Oz just named the loop – and now he's breaking it.
Sources:
- "Owner of Home Health Agency Sentenced to 54 Months in Prison for Over $100 Million Health Care Fraud," U.S. Department of Justice, February 1, 2023.
- Ken Girardin, "NY's Powerful 1199 SEIU Union Already Benefiting from Gov. Hochul's Allegedly Rigged Revamp of $11B Medicaid Program," New York Post, December 12, 2025.
- "Hochul's CDPAP Overhaul Hands a Costly Win to 1199," Empire Center for Public Policy, October 3, 2024.
- "Notoriously Fraudulent NY Health Program Lost $1.2 Billion to Scammers and Middlemen," New York Post, March 11, 2026.
- Travis Gillmore, "New York's Medicaid Program Under Federal Investigation for Alleged Fraud," The Epoch Times, March 9, 2026.
- "1199SEIU Begins Organizing CDPAP Workers," Crain's New York Business, March 3, 2026.
- "Oz: Unionizing NY Care Workers Means 'We're Paying Union Dues' that Help 'Political Patronage,'" Breitbart, May 11, 2026.