House Republicans Launch Task Force to Probe Ohio Medicaid Fraud

House Republicans have formed a new oversight task force that will begin by investigating alleged social services fraud in Ohio.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., selected Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a member of the committee, to head the Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses, Fox News Digital has learned.

Comer and Gill sent a letter Tuesday to Ohio Department of Medicaid Director Scott Partika seeking documents tied to a Daily Wire report on widespread fraud in the state's Medicaid waiver program for home health and community-based services.

The report detailed 288 home health companies in Columbus, Ohio, that listed the same addresses. Dozens operated from office buildings that looked vacant or rundown. Those entities billed the federal government more than $250 million in Medicaid funds from 2018 to 2024, though questions arose about whether they provided the services or billed correctly.

"Americans deserve truth, transparency and justice," Gill said in a statement. "They are sick of being defrauded by government institutions and programs that should have been putting them first, not robbing their tax dollars."

"Under his leadership, we will continue to expose radical ideologies being pushed on Americans and fight to safeguard our freedom that we've enjoyed as a nation for 250 years," Comer said. He called Gill, a freshman lawmaker, a key figure on the Oversight Committee.

The task force will examine institutions enforcing diversity, equity and inclusion policies, people misusing immigration and social welfare programs, and attempts by foreign actors or dark money groups to censor speech.

House Oversight Republicans are also probing social services fraud in Minnesota and California.

"The current Medicaid system either does not have sufficient internal controls to prevent and detect fraud or is not conducting proper oversight of these HCBS providers," Comer and Gill wrote. "As a result, Americans across the country are paying for this fraud while vulnerable patients are being exploited."

Comer approved the task force for six months. Gill plans to hold hearings later.

Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy promised to review the state's Medicaid spending if elected in November.

"We're going to have to take a deep, hard look at the way the $40-plus billion in state Medicaid dollars are being spent," Ramaswamy told host Kayleigh McEnany on "Saturday in America."

"I think the right answer is any instance of waste, fraud, abuse ... deserve[s] to be prosecuted, and we intend to investigate them aggressively, as well as to prosecute aggressively, to send a deterrent signal that our government is not a piggy bank. The taxpayer is not a piggy bank to be bilked."

The Ohio Department of Medicaid told the Daily Wire it has adequate safeguards against fraud and was already looking into home health companies before the report.