Vance Calls Out Hawaii AG: 4 Years, Zero Fraud Convictions

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Guess how many convictions or indictments has Hawaii had over the last few years in its Medicaid fraud program?

[00:00:07]The answer is zero.

[00:00:08]>> America, every conservative outlet this week ran the same exact headline.

[00:00:14]>> California. California.

[00:00:15]>> I ran California at $1.3 billion. Gavin Newsome. That is the story that the algorithm rewarded and everybody took it. But here's what got buried at that same press conference on May 13th, 2026.

[00:00:28]Hawaii's Medicaid fraud unit has produced zero criminal convictions for four straight years. Not low numbers, not disappointing results, zero. While hundreds of open fraud cases sat on their desks every single year. And the federal government sent a letter to Hawaii's attorney general telling her directly, "Your failures to do your job has put every single dollar of Hawaii's Medicaid program at risk. California is the big number. Hawaii is the berry scandal. And the attorney general now defending zero convictions used to run the hospital network that she's currently supposed to be investigating.

[00:01:09]That's what we're getting into today.

[00:01:16]What is up guys? Tyson Dela Cruz here.

[00:01:18]Thank you so much for rocking with me.

[00:01:20]before Hawaii, you need Ohio because Ohio is the picture of what Medicaid fraud actually looks like on the ground.

[00:01:28]And more important, you guys, than the fraud is the proof that prosecuting is absolutely entirely possible. On March 24th, 2026, Ohio's state auditor released a report on Medicaid home health programs. 38% of all home health dollars spent in the entire state of Ohio went directly to one single county, Franklin County. Sounds absolutely familiar, right? That's in Columbus. And more than 40% of that one county's money flowing in just into two zip codes. Both are, crazily enough, within four miles of one another. Fox News tracked those two zip codes and found two specific buildings containing, get this, more than 60 home health businesses between them. 60 companies supposed to be sending nurses to people's homes sharing office space and what amounts to strip mall storefront numbers. Dead people were still enrolled and obviously still billing here. The auditors confirmed it.

[00:02:31]Now watch you guys. Ohio's own state auditor and what they put the number on what it actually costs.

[00:02:37]>> 800 million to 4 billion is real money.

[00:02:41]It's real money for Bob and Betty Buckkey who we all work for and it's real money that we want to see get fixed.

[00:02:46]>> Sure that the payments are going to people that let's say in an extreme case is the person that's receiving home care still alive? Are they being cared for?

[00:02:55]Does someone show up and care for them?

[00:02:56]What does that care look like?

[00:02:58]>> Obviously that's not rhetorical here.

[00:02:59]The auditors literally found dead people enrolled in services and they're still getting build. Dead people pulling living checks. Ohio found the fraud.

[00:03:07]Ohio has $444 indictments, 481 convictions, and 78.4 million recovered since 2023. Ohio, you guys prove that it can be done. What comes next proves this is all a choice.

[00:03:23]Regular people paying into a system that organized crime figured out how to rob while the people assigned to stop it still collect their paychecks and do absolutely nothing. That, my friends, is what your retirement sitting inside the system ran by the same government just admitted. Those of you that have been with me for a while, you guys know I'm about protecting your money and protecting your generational wealth. And you don't want it in a system that you can't control. Not because that I'm absolutely paranoid here, but I'm about controlling the money. Because I read the receipts and I read the stories.

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[00:04:49]>> During a recent state audit, investigators found 40% of the money spent went to just one county. That's Franklin County where Columbus is. And almost 40% of that money went to just two zip codes. The addresses are all within four miles of each other. The state auditor says overall they found what they call an error rate of almost 16%. Now error rate is just a bureaucratic way to say money sent to people for whom it was not intended.

[00:05:15]>> Ohio found it and immediately started investigating. I want you guys to hold that energy in your head because what I'm about to show you what Hawaii's response looks like when they were given that same kind of information for four consecutive years. Hawaii's Medicaid program, it's called MetaQuest. pretty fitting for Hawaii spent $3.2 billion last year. $3.2 billion. The federal government covers 73 cents of every single dollar. That means roughly $2.3 billion of federal taxpayer money goes into Hawaii's Medicaid system every single year. The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the office created specifically to catch and prosecute people stealing that type of money, receives about $3.9 million a year from the federal government. The entire purpose is absolutely one thing here. It's obviously to find the fraud, charge the fraud, and protect the program. Simple numbers here. Here's the annual report.

[00:06:15]2023, 368 open fraud investigations, zero indictments, zero convictions. In 2025, 388 open fraud investigations, zero indictments, zero convictions. More than 1,100 active fraud cases across three years. Zero criminal output. When Vance called out the unit by name on May 13th, the attorney general of Hawaii issued a press release. Obviously, she did. And inside that press release was a specific achievement. She chose to highlight the evidence of enforcement of a $30,000 settlement. $30,000.

[00:06:58]Hawaii has not ignored Medicaid fraud.

[00:07:00]Our Medicaid fraud control unit has secured or helped secure more than $14 million in judgments, settlements, and recoveries since 2021. Filed recent criminal charges, actively working with federal and state partners to strengthen investigations and prosecutions.

[00:07:17]Mischaracterized as doing nothing.

[00:07:19]Here's what's inside that $14 million number that Lopez bragged about here.

[00:07:25]The specific highlighted achievement in her own press release was a $30,000 settlement. $30,000 out of $3.2 billion in the program. If Hawaii's program is the size of Olympic swimming pool, the settlement is one teaspoon of the water.

[00:07:44]One teaspoon. And she put it in a press release like it was an absolute mega absolute nuclear achievement here. stood up and said, "Political attacks do not change the facts." And she's absolutely right about that. The fact is $30,000.

[00:08:00]And the pattern under those facts go back 12 freaking years. And every step traces back to three federal audits that every Democrat governor and every Democrat attorney general chose to absolutely ignore. Before I get into the timeline, I need to take about 30 seconds here. Look, I genuinely absolutely love Hawaii. I think it is one of the most gorgeous places that I've personally ever visited. It's amazing. Waterfalls, water, the people are absolutely amazing. The culture, the islands, all of it is incredibly special. And let's not talk about the food here because there is absolutely nothing like nothing like sitting down at a Hawaiian restaurant. If you guys have eaten Hawaiian food, you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. Grabbing yourself some Kobe beef ribs, some mac salad, and a couple of spam musu bees for a cheat meal. Absolutely amazing. It hits every single time. And I'm not ashamed of saying it. Hawaii is gorgeous. My issue here is not with the people of Hawaii. My issue here is with the people. The people of Hawaii chose to elect and how they're protecting the money. And what happened to the money?

[00:09:06]12 years and it hasn't done nothing. The elderly Hawaiian who needs Medicaid to cover their care. Lowincome families counting on that specific program. They deserve a fraud unit that actually freaking works for a living. They're getting press releases with so-called achievements of $30,000 instead. Now, let me show you who's responsible and exactly how long this has been going on for. Annie Lopez was appointed Hawaii Attorney General by Democrat Governor Josh Green in December 5th, 2022. Her confirmation sailed through like a boat on the open water through Hawaii state Senate on April 25th, 2023 before becoming Hawaii's top law enforcement officer, the person responsible for protecting Medicaid Healthcare Fraud.

[00:09:50]Miss Annie Lopez was the chief operating officer and general counsel of the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation. That, my friends, is the state's own hospital network. She was an executive who ran the administration on the exact type of healthcare organizations that her fraud unit is now investigating. She knows exactly how hospital billing works with Medicaid. She knows how providers submit claims or falsify documents potentially allegedly. I got to say that for the YouTube purposes. She knows how the paperwork gets filed and she knows where corners don't get cut and tees don't get crossed and eyes don't get dotted. She knows the system inside and out. And since Miss Annie took the job as AG in 2023, zero criminal convictions. There was a phrase for this situation, you guys, and it absolutely writes itself.

[00:10:41]Now, watch what happened to one of the previous directors who actually tried to use the unit the way that it was meant to be designed. The Hawaii office also has other problems revealed in a lawsuit from former director Don Shigazawa, who did prosecute several cases until she was forced out by then attorney general Clare Connors. Shigazawa's attorney says Connors wanted to use fraud unit resources for other purposes and Shigazawa resisted >> because they wanted the money and they wanted the resources for whatever they wanted to do.

[00:11:10]>> Connors denied that allegation and the state is still fighting the lawsuit. The woman who's actually doing the job, building real cases, securing real convictions, she got pushed out. The attorney above her wanted the resources redirected elsewhere. Obviously, she resisted. She was removed. The state is still fighting that lawsuit right now as this video is being recorded. That same output, the fraud unit running, investigators on payroll, money coming in, zero prosecutions, continued directly into Lopez's tenure. This obviously is not by accident. It is 12 years of documented ignored failure. And here's a specific paper show, you guys.

[00:11:50]The Office of Inspector General, the federal watchdog of the Health and Human Services, conducted an onsite review of Hawaii's fraud unit in 2014. Here's what the report found. And they found that the unit could not carry out its basic legal functions. Hawaii wrote a corrective action plan here. OIG came in in 2019. Second review found the unit still producing low case outcomes, still burning resources, thousands of cases unsuitable for investigations, still failing to properly train investigators.

[00:12:26]Hawaii concurred with all three recommendations and they promised to fix them. In 2022, Hawaii News Now published an investigation confirming Hawaii had the lowest rate of charged crimes in the nation. in the nation for Medicaid fraud. The unit director blamed C19 in the pandemic and made a promise that a lot more was in the pipeline. Watch how confident he sounded in 2022.

[00:12:51]>> Fraud is out there. We just want to make sure we're doing everything we can to identify and hold people accountable for it. We have a lot in the pipe. I can assure you that the pandemic had a dramatic effect on our ability to gather evidence, interview witnesses, obtain records. I mean, a lot of these um the places uh where we would be going to find evidence, they were shut down.

[00:13:11]>> I can assure you, he says, there's a lot more in the hopper. There's a lot more in the pipe. The pipe, you guys had a lot in it, but it wasn't anything good.

[00:13:18]The pipe was almost empty at the end of 2023, zero in 2024, zero in 2025, zero, zero, zero. Same director, same asurances, same zeroed out pipe, zero output. And that same year, Marada made that promise. Pennsylvania charged 115 people for Medicaid fraud. Mississippi charged 104. Wyoming with only 49 cases charged one person. Hawaii, get this, this is going to blow your mind, guys, 600 cases and also charged one person.

[00:13:54]And somehow it got worse the year after that. Your federal tax dollars explained plainly it paid for this. The Hawaii Medicaid program has received billions and billions of dollars from the federal taxpayers. And of course, Hawaii taxpayers have paid in a lot of money into this program over the last years.

[00:14:15]Uh, as well, if you're watching this video from Ohio, Texas, Florida, or even Nevada, your federal taxes fund Hawaii's Medicaid fraud unit. About $2.9 million a year goes from Washington to Honolulu to pay for that particular unit. That unit, my friends, has produced zero criminal results for the money that you've actually sent. You paid I paid ice cream for ice cream for a unit that says absolutely nothing. And Vance is now asking the only question that makes sense. Why should we keep paying? The argument Lopez's team has already started making and will probably keep making is that Medicaid fraud is legally complex to prosecute and you have to prove intent here and it takes time to build cases and to build cases is very difficult work. Obviously guys, that is a real legal reality. But if you look at the numbers that some of these other states are putting up on the scoreboard, the exact same process, they're doing numbers in Hawaii ain't. Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine made Medicare fraud prosecution an absolute priority. 444 indictments, 481 convictions, 78 million recovered the same time that Hawaii produced absolutely nothing. A goose egg. Indiana, one-third of the population of New York, four times as many fraud indictments as New York.

[00:15:40]Maryland, a blue state, Democrat-led, cooperating with Vance's task force and delivered results. Vance specifically named Maryland as a state that's doing it right. The prosecution complexity's defense collapses the moment that you place Hawaii next to these other states and you put it on a graph here. And Vance made the argument on record. Does anybody here seriously think that the good people of Indiana are 12 times more likely to commit fraud than the people of New York? No, of course not. That's absurd. What is happening is that the people in, excuse me, the leadership in New York are just not taking the fraud issue seriously. They're not using these anti-fraud control units to actually investigate and indict the fraud.

[00:16:22]>> Apply that exact same logic to Hawaii.

[00:16:24]Because anybody seriously believe that Medicaid fraud in Hawaii is uniquely rare here. So impossibly complex that not one person can be charged in four years while Louisiana charges 44 people.

[00:16:38]Maryland charged enough in New York charges 25. The fraud you guys in Hawaii. The investigators are in Hawaii.

[00:16:44]The money to catch us in Hawaii, brother. And Vance just attached a very specific consequence to that decision.

[00:16:51]Today we are sending across 50 Medicaid programs. We are sending letters that will require them to show that they are effectively and aggressively prosecuting Medicaid fraud in their states. And if they do not if they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud, we are going to turn off the money that goes to these anti-fraud units.

[00:17:12]>> Hey brother, they're going to turn off the money, bro. That's the penalty.

[00:17:14]Hawaii's fraud unit almost runs entirely off of federal funding. roughly, like I mentioned earlier in this video, $2.9 million a year. That is not a supplemental grant. That is the operational budget for the entire unit.

[00:17:27]If Vance follows through with cutting off the money, brah, which he already did with California and Minnesota, Hawaii does not lose a small line item, it loses the budget of the unit and can't produce any results because obviously I don't think it would matter because they're not producing any results anyways. And the most clarifying exchange about what the enforcement actually looks like happened at the same press conference.

[00:17:50]>> So you're saying that we kicked off 800 fraudulent healthcare providers off of the Medicare system and not a single one of them called the government and said, "Hey, you made a mistake."

[00:17:58]>> We've had a handful of calls. We're not sure they're legitimate yet, but it's less than 20 out of 800 and we're auditing them.

[00:18:05]>> Unbelievable. So So at least 780 are not even trying to claim that they're not fraudulent. And again, those are businesses that we were giving hundreds of millions, in some cases billions of dollars to uh not to provide services, but to make a fraudster rich. It's just >> 780 businesses billing Medicaid went completely silenced when the government cut them off. Because if you fight back, investigators pull your entire file and then they find things that you don't want to find. The Medicaid fraud community knows within 24 hours when the enforcement is real. For 12 years in Hawaii, the fraud community in that state knew that it was absolutely real.

[00:18:41]Annie Lopez's $30,000 achievement settlement communicated the threat level to every single year in that press conference and she said that it was her best achievement. We are not going to have a generous country if Americans think that they're paying their taxes not to needy people but to fraudsters.

[00:19:00]That's fundamentally what we're trying to fix is rebuilding America's trust.

[00:19:04]that when you pay your taxes, when you send money to a program, it's actually going to the people it's supposed to go to.

[00:19:10]>> America, here's what nobody's asking, plainly enough. Vance confirmed on record that the administration is examining whether governors who received fraud reports and did nothing could face criminal liability. He named obviously Gavin Newsome. He named obviously Timmy Tampon Walsh by title. When he said looked the other way, that was his exact phrase. Governor Josh Green has said almost absolutely nothing publicly since Vance's presser with Dr. Oz. Lopez called it a political attack. The Department of Human Services issued a statement saying that they are confident the feds will find no case and withhold no payments. This, my friends, we already know is the same playbook. Every state with a broken fraud unit runs.

[00:19:59]Cite the civil settlements. Avoid the criminal conviction questions. Call the critics political. It worked in Hawaii for 12 freaking years because nobody was watching close enough to push back.

[00:20:11]Letters went out to all 50 states. The money turns off for the states that can't show aggressive prosecution. 12 years of federal audits, four years of zero criminal convictions, and a $30,000 press release as a defense. Annie Lopez ran hospitals, and now she runs the unit that investigates them. And she's about to find out whether political attacks change federal funding decisions. Zero is zero, my friends. And the receipts, they don't be lying. Let me know what you think about this. Drop it down in the comments section down below. Smash the like button if you kindly would share, subscribe, and as always guys, I'll catch you on the next one.