Gavin Newsom spent four years telling Californians he had hospice fraud under control.
RFK Jr just asked one question on a podcast that proved he was lying.
The answer – which Kennedy delivered himself – is the only number you need to understand what Newsom let happen to your Medicare dollars.
Ghost Patients, Stolen Medicare Numbers and a 100 Percent Survival Rate
On a recent episode of the Bossticks podcast, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked the hosts a simple question: what's the mortality rate for Russian hospices in Los Angeles?
Then he answered it himself.
One hundred percent survival rate.
"Nobody ever dies," Kennedy said. "They're in hospice, they're just billed eternally – and the people don't actually exist."
"They're just patient IDs that they've stolen."
Hospice care is legally designed for people in the last six months of their lives.
LA County has 1,923 hospice providers – more than 36 states combined and 33 times more than the entire state of Florida.
Eighteen percent of all home health care billing in the United States is coming out of one county in California.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has been sounding the alarm since January – his agency believes the fraud in LA County alone reaches $3.5 billion.
The Russian and Armenian organized crime networks running this operation aren't new – federal prosecutors first cracked down on the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian crime ring roughly a decade ago, charging 73 members with stealing $100 million from Medicare through phantom clinics.
They got one to three years.
Good return on investment.
What Happens When Scammers Enroll Your Parents in a Ghost Hospice
This isn't just money.
When a fraudster steals a senior's Medicare number and enrolls them in a ghost hospice, that senior is legally flagged as someone who has opted out of all life-saving treatment.
That means no emergency room. No doctor visits. Most prescriptions gone.
The moment your mother is fraudulently enrolled in hospice, she can't get real medical care – and reversing it can take weeks of administrative fighting while the clock runs out.
"They need the care but can't get it," said Sheila Clark, president of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association. "What do they do? They say, 'I didn't enroll in this hospice.'"
A Russian national named Nikolai Buzolin was charged this month after filing over $400 million in fraudulent Medicare claims – then purchasing a same-day one-way ticket to Moscow.
He didn't even try to hide it.
That's a criminal who spent years watching California do nothing and concluded, correctly, that the risk wasn't worth worrying about.
Newsom Knew About the Hospice Fraud for Four Years and Did Nothing
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom laying out exactly what the governor knew and when.
California's own state auditor had documented the crisis in a March 2022 report – 112 different hospices registered to a single physical address, providers billing Medicare at nearly double the state average, patients certified as terminally ill who were later discharged alive, and staff shared across dozens of agencies with overlapping ownership.
Newsom's response: a moratorium on new hospice licenses in 2021.
The fraud exploded anyway.
CBS News visited the addresses on file and found empty offices, piled-up mail, and zero health care workers.
742 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in LA County now trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by California's own standards.
The average hospice nationwide bills Medicare $13,200 per patient.
The average LA County hospice bills $29,000 – more than double.
Comer didn't mince words: "It is rampant in California, and Gavin Newsom knew it and hasn't done a thing about it."
He told Newsom to lawyer up.
The deadline for him to hand over documents is April 6.
Why California Hospice Fraud Makes Minnesota Look Small
This matters beyond California.
The House Oversight Committee ran this same investigation in Minnesota – where Tim Walz watched $350 million get stolen from programs designed to feed children.
That investigation forced the fraud into the open and put Walz on defense for months.
Comer is running the same playbook on Newsom, and he's saying the California numbers make Minnesota look like small potatoes.
Organized crime networks don't improvise – they find the state with the weakest oversight, plant their operation, and bill until someone shuts them down.
California was that state.
The Trump administration is done letting Democrat governors treat federal Medicare dollars as a slush fund for criminal networks.
Comer has a deadline. The FBI is involved. And RFK Jr. just made sure the whole country knows what a hundred percent survival rate in a hospice actually means.
It means nobody is dying.
Because nobody is there.
Sources:
- Katie Jerkovich, "RFK Jr. highlights rampant LA hospice fraud 'run by Russian mobsters,'" New York Post, March 25, 2026.
- William La Jeunesse, "Los Angeles hospice fraud reaches billions as Medicare providers scam federal system with fake companies," Fox News, January 30, 2026.
- "Oversight Committee Launches Investigation Into Rampant Taxpayer Fraud in California Hospice Programs," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, March 23, 2026.
- "House committee GOP lawmakers probe 'rampant' hospice fraud in California," Fox News, March 24, 2026.
- "Comer tells Newsom to 'lawyer up' as House Oversight launches California fraud probe," Fox News, March 25, 2026.
- "Russian Citizen Charged with Laundering Over $1.2M Connected to $400M in Fraudulent Medicare Claims," U.S. Department of Justice, March 2026.
- Alex Nitzberg, "Dr. Oz warns foreign nationals may be tied to US hospice fraud, points to LA as hotspot," Fox Business, March 25, 2026.