Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leveled sharp accusations against his predecessor, Xavier Becerra, claiming that the Biden-era leadership gutted the department’s anti-fraud operations and left the door wide open for criminals to exploit the system.
Speaking at a White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud press conference, Kennedy said that when Becerra took over the agency, the program integrity team—responsible for policing fraud across the department’s massive annual outlays—had been reduced to just 80 people.
“My predecessor, Xavier Becerra, when he came into my agency, there were only 80 people in program integrity, 80 people,” Kennedy said. “This is for 50 states and five territories.”
According to Kennedy, those employees were charged with monitoring roughly four million transactions every day, guarding more than $2.2 trillion in annual HHS payments against fraud. But he alleged that Becerra then reassigned 76 of those team members, leaving only six people to oversee all program integrity for the entire department.
“So that when I came in, there’s only six people who are in charge of all program integrity for my department,” Kennedy said. “And it was an invitation for the fraudsters to come in and steal everything.”
Kennedy pointed to specific examples of fraud that he said flourished as a result of the diminished oversight, including widespread abuse in hospice care and durable medical equipment billing.
“We’ve closed thousands of hospices here in Los Angeles because they didn’t have patients. They were just billing us $6,000 a month for phony accounts,” he said. He also cited durable medical equipment fraud totaling tens of billions of dollars in Los Angeles County and similar losses in autism services.
“Autism services, tens of billions of dollars all stolen because nobody was minding the store,” Kennedy said.
He further criticized Becerra for implementing a policy he described as “Pay and Chase,” which he said meant the department would pay invoices even when they were known to be fraudulent, and only later attempt to recover the money.
“What that means is when we get an invoice from a hospice, that we know is fraudulent,” Kennedy said, though he did not complete the thought in the available audio.
The remarks immediately raised questions about the extent of fraud and oversight failures at HHS during the Biden administration. Kennedy’s comments come as the Trump administration has made combating government fraud a key priority, with the White House task force focusing on waste, fraud, and abuse across federal agencies.
The HHS Office of Inspector General has long documented significant fraud vulnerabilities in programs like Medicare and Medicaid, but Kennedy’s direct accusations against Becerra mark a sharp escalation in the political debate over federal spending oversight.
Becerra, who served as HHS Secretary from 2021 to 2025, has not yet responded publicly to Kennedy’s allegations. During his tenure, the department faced criticism from some Republicans over its handling of pandemic-related programs and other initiatives, but the specific claim about gutting the program integrity team has not been independently verified.
Kennedy’s statements are likely to fuel further congressional scrutiny and could become a flashpoint in ongoing budget battles, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle express concern over the rising federal deficit and the need for more robust anti-fraud measures.
The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which Kennedy addressed, was established to coordinate efforts across agencies to root out improper payments and fraudulent claims. The task force has highlighted cases in various federal programs, but HHS’s enormous budget makes it a prime target for fraud prevention efforts.
According to the Government Accountability Office, improper payments across the federal government have totaled hundreds of billions of dollars in recent years, with HHS consistently ranking among the agencies with the highest levels of such payments.
Kennedy’s characterization of the situation—going from 80 to just six program integrity staff—paints a picture of a department that was critically understaffed in its anti-fraud efforts at a time when it was disbursing trillions of dollars in healthcare-related funds.
It remains to be seen whether the accusations will lead to any formal investigations or policy changes, but the political implications are immediate. The Biden administration has pushed back against claims of widespread fraud in its programs, noting that many oversight mechanisms remained in place, but Kennedy’s specific allegations about the reduction in staff are likely to be scrutinized in the coming weeks.
For now, the dispute highlights the ongoing partisan battles over federal spending and the effectiveness of previous administrations in safeguarding taxpayer dollars.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/08/13/rfk-jr-says-biden-hhs-left-department-wide-open-to-fraud/