DOGE targets Medicare agency, looking for fraud

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is moving with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and has gained entree to outgo and contracting systems successful hunt for imaginable fraud, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Trump's DOGE has already gutted USAID, but Musk argued connected X that Medicare and Medicaid are wherever the "big wealth fraud" is happening.

CMS oversees Medicare, the wellness sum programme for older and disabled Americans, and Medicaid, for lower-income enrollees, which provides security for implicit 140 cardinal U.S. citizens.

The CMS regularly deals with improper payments that correspond fraud oregon maltreatment but mightiness besides beryllium owed to a state, contractor, oregon supplier missing an administrative step.

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WSJ reported, citing 1 of the radical acquainted with DOGE's enactment astatine CMS, that Musk's allies person not been fixed entree to databases that see identifiable idiosyncratic wellness accusation of Medicare oregon Medicaid enrollees.

The caller run comes conscionable days aft DOGE targeted USAID, starring to the firing of 50 apical officials and the enactment being folded into the State Department.

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Signs were besides removed from USAID’s office successful the Ronald Reagan Building successful Washington, D.C., and the DOGE squad took implicit the machine systems, sources said. USAID is liable for distributing civilian overseas assistance and improvement assistance to countries astir the globe.

Elon Musk, the seat of DOGE, has been starring an probe into USAID's spending practices arsenic the bureau comes to a standstill. (Getty Images)

Musk referred to the enactment arsenic a "viper's nest." The bureau managed astir $40 cardinal successful appropriations past year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

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The actions came aft Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting connected Trump's enforcement order, paused each U.S. overseas assistance funded by oregon done the State Department and USAID.

Employees and supporters stitchery to protestation extracurricular of USAID office connected Feb. 3, 2025, successful Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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The 90-day intermission has halted thousands of U.S.-funded humanitarian, improvement and information programs worldwide and forced assistance organizations to laic disconnected hundreds of employees due to the fact that they can't marque payroll.

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner, Chris Pandolfo, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.