THE FRAUD EPIDEMIC NOBODY WANTS TO TALK ABOUT HONESTLY

I am going to say something that will make both parties uncomfortable.

The fraud destroying America's safety net programs is not a Democrat problem.

It is not a Republican problem.

It is an American problem. And it is massive.

We are losing $186 billion every single year to fraud, waste, and improper payments across federal programs. That number comes from the Government Accountability Office. Not a political organization. Not a think tank funded by a billionaire. The actual federal auditors whose job is to track where the money goes.

And that is only what they can prove.

The real number is higher. Significantly higher. The GAO can only count what gets reported, what gets investigated, and what gets caught. Fraud by definition is designed not to be found. The schemes that get busted are the ones that got sloppy or got unlucky. For every Operation Skip Trace that makes the news there are operations running right now that nobody has walked into yet. For every case that ends in an indictment there are billers, providers, and insiders who have been stealing quietly for years and have never had a federal auditor knock on their door.

$186 billion is the floor. Not the ceiling.

And even that floor is more money than the entire GDP of most countries on earth. Stolen. Every year. From programs that were built to help the most vulnerable Americans.

It is gone.

And for decades, Washington looked the other way. Both parties. Administration after administration. The money disappeared and the investigations were underfunded, understaffed, and politically inconvenient.

But here is what frustrates me most.

The media was supposed to catch this.

A free press was always the check that the Founding Fathers never wrote into the Constitution but always assumed would exist. It was supposed to stand between power and the public. Ask the hard questions. Follow the money. Publish what the powerful did not want published. Serve the viewer. Serve the citizen. Serve the truth.

That institution is failing.

Not because journalism is dead. But because too much of what calls itself journalism today is beholden to its advertisers, not its viewers. Networks that depend on pharmaceutical ad revenue are not going to spend prime time exposing pharmaceutical fraud. Outlets funded by corporate interests are not going to aggressively cover how government healthcare programs are being looted. The financial incentives point away from the truth and the coverage follows the money.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a business model.

And it is exactly why legacy media is dying. People are not leaving because they stopped caring about the news. They are leaving because they stopped trusting it. They can feel when a story is being softened. They can sense when a topic is being avoided. They are not stupid and they are not going to keep watching institutions that treat them like they are.

So who picks up the slack?

We do.

President Kennedy said it 64 years ago and it has never been more true than right now.

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

That was not just a line in a speech. That was a standard. A direct challenge to every American citizen to show up, pay attention, and hold this country to account when the people in charge will not do it themselves. 64 years later that challenge has not expired. If anything it has become more urgent. Because the institutions Kennedy trusted to hold the line have stepped back from that responsibility. The government failed to stop this. The media failed to expose it. That leaves us.

And we have proof that when regular Americans answer that call it changes things.

Nick Shirley is an American YouTuber and influencer. Not a senator. Not a federal investigator. Not a journalist with a network behind him. Just a regular American who picked up a camera, showed up, and started asking the questions that the people who were supposed to be asking them were not asking.

His work brought national attention to fraud in Minnesota's social services programs at a time when mainstream media was either ignoring the story or burying it. No press credential. No legal team. No corporate backing.

If it were not for his bravery and his simplicity we would not have the level of national attention on government fraud that we have today.

Read that again.

Not a congressman. Not a cabinet secretary. Not a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.

A regular American with a camera and a conscience moved the entire national conversation.

That is both inspiring and deeply embarrassing at the same time. Inspiring because it proves one person with enough courage can still move this country. Embarrassing because it means every institution that was supposed to catch this first failed to do so. And if it took one person to spark the conversation imagine what happens when all of us decide to join it.

We need more Nick Shirleys. Not just YouTubers. Not just influencers. Every single American who sees something wrong and has any platform at all — a social media page, a conversation at work, a family dinner, a church meeting, a neighborhood group chat — has a role to play right now. Kennedy was not talking to senators and journalists when he issued that challenge. He was talking to all of us. Every citizen. Every voter. Every person paying taxes into a system that is being robbed blind.

That is changing.

Vice President JD Vance is currently leading a White House anti-fraud task force with a direct mandate to investigate misuse of federal funds across Medicaid, SNAP, and healthcare programs. This is not a committee. This is not a study. This is the Vice President of the United States personally assigned to go after fraud with the full weight of the executive branch behind him. That is a bigger commitment than we have seen from Washington on this issue in a very long time.

We voted for exactly this kind of accountability. And this is what it looks like when it starts to happen.

But here is what that investigation has revealed that nobody on either side wants to fully admit.

The problem is bigger than any of us thought.

And it is not just in blue states.

When you turn the lights on in a house this dirty you see mess everywhere. Not just in the corners the other team was sitting in.

We built a tool to help you see all of it. Our Fraud Tracker at basethenation.com/fraud-tracker breaks down estimated fraud in every single state — Medicaid, Medicare, hospice, SNAP, education, and housing programs — ranked highest to lowest. Every number sourced directly to a federal report, an inspector general filing, or a court case. Click your state. See what is happening in your backyard. Then share it. Send it to people who need to see it. Post it on your page. That is Kennedy's challenge applied to 2026. That is what Nick Shirley did and it worked.

Now let me give you the numbers.

California lost $267 million in a single hospice fraud ring busted in April 2026. Operation Skip Trace. Investigators found 14 fake hospice companies purchasing stolen identities off the dark web, enrolling healthy people who had no idea they were supposedly receiving end-of-life care, then billing Medi-Cal for services that were never provided to patients who never existed.

Not a dollar of legitimate medical care was delivered.

Not one.

Twenty-one people were charged. The fraud had been running quietly for years.

Pull up California in our Fraud Tracker. The hospice numbers alone should make you angry.

New York had a single Medicare and Medicaid fraud case involving fifteen defendants that totaled $10.6 billion. That is not a typo. Billion. With a B. In one case. New York sits at the top of our tracker for a reason.

Minnesota is under a federal probe with the government withholding $500 million per quarter in Medicaid funding over systemic fraud in personal care services. The state has sued to get the money back.

Illinois. Pennsylvania. Michigan. Real fraud. Real dollars. All sourced in the tracker with the federal documents to back every number up.

The Trump administration was right to go after them. Vance leading this task force personally signals the commitment is serious and we should support it.

Now here is where I lose some people on the right.

Mississippi.

A deep red state. Republican governors for decades. And the federal government had to demand repayment of $101 million in welfare funds that were stolen, misused, and funneled to connected insiders, athletes, and the pet projects of the politically powerful.

The money was supposed to go to the poorest families in the poorest state in America. Families receiving $146 per month to survive. Instead, $5 million went to build a volleyball stadium. Millions more went to a former NFL player's fitness program. Brett Favre's name is in the middle of it.

Former Governor Phil Bryant has not been charged with anything.

And the Trump administration — the same administration that froze funding to Minnesota and held press conferences about blue state fraud — quietly rescinded the penalty letter against Mississippi. No press conference. No announcement. No outrage from conservative media.

That is a problem.

If Vance's task force is truly about protecting taxpayer dollars — and I believe the intent is genuine — then Mississippi has to be held to the same standard as Minnesota. There is no version of fiscal conservatism that says fraud only counts when Democrats are in charge of the state where it happened.

That is not accountability. That is politics wearing accountability's clothes.

North Carolina is dealing with a Medicaid billing spike of 347 percent in autism therapy programs. Texas has some of the highest hospice fraud concentrations in the country. The DOJ has been cracking down on Medicare end-of-life schemes in Houston and Dallas specifically. Alabama had $16 million in stolen SNAP benefits replaced by the federal government in just the past two years.

Red states. Republican governors. Documented federal fraud.

If you only follow conservative media you probably did not hear much about any of that. If you only follow liberal media you probably did not hear much about California or Minnesota.

That is the game. And it is exactly why we all have to speak up. Not just the people with the biggest platforms. All of us. Because the media is not going to do it. The politicians will only go as far as we push them. And the fraudsters are counting on the fact that we are too divided and too distracted to ever come after all of them at once.

I want to be honest about something.

This administration deserves real credit. More aggressive action on fraud than we have seen in decades. The task force is real. The investigations are real. The frozen payments are real. That is what we asked for when we voted and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But great starts have to become great finishes.

And a great finish means every stolen dollar gets pursued with equal aggression regardless of which state it happened in and regardless of which party was in charge when it happened. If we are serious about protecting taxpayer dollars — and I believe most Americans who voted for this administration genuinely are — then we cannot let that energy slow down, get redirected, or get selectively applied for political convenience. We have to push. We have to be loud about it. We have to hold them accountable the same way they are holding others accountable.

That is our job as citizens. That is what Kennedy was talking about.

Here is what I know to be true.

This is not about poor people gaming the system for extra groceries. This is organized crime. Professional fraud. The fraudsters are not recipients. They are providers. Doctors, clinic operators, pharmacy owners, hospice companies. Billing for patients who do not exist. Billing for services that were never rendered. Billing for equipment that was never delivered.

CMS suspended payments to 15 providers who allegedly billed Medicare for more than $4 billion in urinary catheters that were never supplied. That is not an accident. That is a business model built on stolen taxpayer money. And it has been running for years because not enough people were watching. Not enough people were asking questions. Not enough people were speaking up.

The media failed to expose it.

Washington failed to stop it.

And a regular American with a camera finally forced the conversation.

Kennedy's challenge was simple. What can you do for your country.

This is what you can do right now.

Go to basethenation.com/fraud-tracker. Click your state. Click the sources. Read the actual federal reports yourself. Then share it with everyone you know. Post it. Talk about it. Make noise about fraud in red states with the same energy you bring to blue states and vice versa. Hold every elected official to the same standard regardless of party. Do not let this administration — or any administration — get comfortable looking the other way in the states that voted for them.

The media will not do this for you.

Washington will only go as far as we push them.

One regular American with a camera changed the national conversation.

Imagine what all of us together can do.

The money belongs to the American people. And somebody took it. They are sitting in a nice house right now — in a blue state and in a red state — counting on your silence to keep it.

Do not give it to them.

That is how we keep them based.

FRAUD | MEDICAID | SNAP | HOSPICE | GOVERNMENT WASTE | ACCOUNTABILITY | BASED