Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy declared the fight against Medicaid fraud his “absolute top priority” at a Columbus news conference Tuesday — even as the running mate standing beside him helped engineer the dissolution of the legislative panel charged with watching over the program.
Ramaswamy’s news conference, reported by The Associated Press, came one day after Vice President JD Vance directed the federal anti-fraud task force he leads for President Donald Trump to turn its sights on Ohio. Vance’s announcement followed an investigation by the conservative Daily Wire that alleged rampant abuse within the state’s Medicaid-funded home health program.
Ohio Medicaid covers more than a quarter of state residents and operates on a $43 billion budget. The program has been overseen by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for more than seven years.
Running mate’s budget killed the oversight panel
At the heart of the story is a contradiction the AP laid out plainly: Ramaswamy’s running mate, Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, held key decision-making power over the state budget that last year eliminated Ohio’s Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, known as JMOC.
The bipartisan panel — five senators and five representatives — had served as a single legislative checkpoint on Medicaid since 2014. Its dissolution was slipped into House Bill 96, the state’s biennial operating budget, in the final hours of negotiations.
According to Bloomberg Law reporting, JMOC was actively probing multi-billion-dollar contracts with Gainwell Technologies — the nation’s largest processor of Medicaid claims — at the time the provision was inserted. The committee had spent months pressing Ohio Medicaid officials over delayed reimbursements to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other providers.
State Rep. Jennifer Gross, a Republican from West Chester who served on JMOC and chairs the House Medicaid Committee, told the AP on Tuesday that the panel could have helped accomplish exactly the fraud-fighting goals that Vance and Ramaswamy are now promoting.
“I believe that if we had kept JMOC it always could have been something that we kept in place that could have morphed into a DOGE Ohio, an Ohio Medicaid DOGE,” Gross said.
Ramaswamy declines to assign blame
Asked by the AP to what extent the Republican establishment that has controlled state government for more than 15 years should be held accountable for failing to catch more Medicaid fraud, Ramaswamy declined.
“I’m not playing that game, OK?” he said. “I think we need a fresh approach, and what my candidacy represents is, I believe, a bottom-up movement and a demand for change, positive change in the state. A movement beyond the status quo that takes a lot of this for granted.”
Ramaswamy’s plan, which his campaign estimates would save $3.1 billion, is modeled on a Medicaid waiver Tennessee negotiated during the first Trump administration. It would renegotiate Ohio’s agreement with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to increase the share Ohio receives in fraud-fighting incentives and streamline the program’s bureaucracy.
DeWine administration pushes back
DeWine’s office defended the state’s record. The governor announced a new series of Medicaid fraud prevention initiatives on May 13, including pausing new enrollments in the home health program cited by the Daily Wire.
“A general sentiment that Ohio was not working to combat or prosecute Medicaid fraud prior to the publication of the Daily Wire stories is just not true,” DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney told the AP. “There may be people who were unaware of Medicaid fraud prior to that, but Mike DeWine was not one of them.”
Tierney noted that Ohio is consistently ranked among the top states in the nation for prosecuting Medicaid fraud, with 2,300 indictments, 2,200 convictions and $644 million recovered since 2011.
Auditor: findings brought to Medicaid director before her departure
Republican Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, who is running for attorney general in 2026, told the AP that the Medicaid fraud Ramaswamy is highlighting was not a surprise to state officials. Faber said his office brought numerous findings to DeWine’s previous Medicaid director, Maureen Corcoran, who left her position last fall after more than six years.
Records obtained by the AP through a public records request show that Corcoran was fighting JMOC shortly before it was disbanded over access to the fiscal experts critical to Ohio’s budgeting process. Those inquiries ended when the committee was eliminated.
Acton campaign: ‘scam policies’
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton’s campaign rejected Ramaswamy’s plan.
“As governor, Dr. Amy Acton will prioritize rooting out Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse while ensuring that Ohioans can access affordable, quality healthcare,” campaign spokeswoman Addie Bullock said in a statement to the AP. “Dr. Acton is fighting to lower healthcare costs, protect Medicaid and Medicare access, and end the rampant corruption in Ohio’s Statehouse that has allowed fraud, waste, and abuse for far too long.”
Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director who became a national figure during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, won the Democratic primary on May 5. Ramaswamy won the Republican primary the same day. The two will face each other in the November general election.
