Columbus, Ohio – Desperate to hide the fact that he’s on video calling Medicaid a “mistake,” Vivek Ramaswamy unveiled his latest scam yesterday where he claimed he’d fight Medicaid fraud while standing with the very politicians who have been running Ohio for nearly two decades. But in a damning new report from the Associated Press, it was revealed that Ramaswamy’s running mate, State Senate President Rob McColley, was a key architect of a state budget that dissolved the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee.
The Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee was charged with watching over Medicaid and served as a single point of contact between the legislature and the Medicaid system. It was quietly dissolved through a last minute provision in the state budget that McColley had significant influence over. Even Republican State Representative Jennifer Gross, who was at Ramaswamy’s Tuesday press conference, said it could’ve helped fight fraud.
“Ohioans know Vivek Ramaswamy thinks Medicaid is a mistake. His pathetic attempt at claiming he will fight Medicaid fraud while his own running mate dismantled the Medicaid Oversight Committee is proof of yet another Ramaswamy scam,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer. “Ohioans can’t trust a word Vivek Ramaswamy says because he only cares about himself.”
READ: Vance takes his fight against fraud to red Ohio, muddying waters for GOP’s Vivek Ramaswamy
- Vice President JD Vance’s decision to extend his fight against Medicaid fraud beyond Democratic states to his red home state of Ohio has set off a scramble among the state’s Republicans — including his close ally Vivek Ramaswamy, the party’s nominee for governor.
- A common theme at Ramaswamy’s news conference was the past failings of the state’s Department of Medicaid, overseen by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for the past seven years. The criticism was leveled not only by Ramaswamy, but by sitting Republican officeholders who have held sway over Ohio’s existing checks and balances of the program for years.
- Asked to what extent the ruling GOP establishment that has controlled government for more than 15 years should be held accountable for failing to catch more Medicaid fraud, Ramaswamy said he wouldn’t point fingers. “I’m not playing that game, OK?”
- 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, which was charged with watching over Medicaid, a joint federal-state healthcare program that covers more than a quarter of Ohio residents. The panel was investigating contracts with Gainwell, the nation’s largest processor of Medicaid claims, at the time.
- State Rep. Jennifer Gross, a Republican who served on the committee, said Tuesday that the panel could have helped accomplish Vance’s and Ramaswamy’s fraud-fighting goals.
- “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,” she said.
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