"Ain’t No Fraud Like West Coast Fraud Because West Coast Fraud Don't Stop." ~ Larry Elder
Larry Elder, the "Sage of South Central," has spent decades warning conservatives about the hard truths the mainstream Left would rather ignore. When he famously remarked, "Ain't no fraud like west coast fraud because west coast fraud don’t stop," he wasn’t just being clever. He was issuing a prophetic warning about the Golden State’s addiction to waste, abuse, and criminal mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.
Today, that prophecy has manifest in the most grotesque way imaginable: the wholesale looting of hospice care. In California, the business of dying has become the ultimate grift. Recent investigations reveal that the state has become the national epicenter for Medicare and Medicaid fraud, specifically in the hospice industry, where scammers are literally stealing the identities of the living and billing the government for their "deaths."
If you want to understand the difference between red-state accountability and blue-state governance, look no further than the empty storefronts of Van Nuys.
The "Burrito Stand" Scandals
The statistics coming out of Los Angeles County are not just alarming; they are absurd. In any rational market or any state with even a modicum of regulatory competence supply follows demand. But in California, the demand for fraud has created a supply of hospices that defies mathematics.
According to a recent House Committee investigation, the number of hospice providers in Los Angeles County increased by 1,500 percent between 2010 and 2022 . To put that in perspective, Los Angeles County now has more hospice agencies than 36 entire states combined. It has 33 times the number found in Florida, a state with a similar senior population .
How is this possible? As Larry Elder might point out, when you remove consequences, the wolves rush in.
One building on Friar Street in Van Nuys a single, unassuming two-story medical plaza is reportedly home to 89 licensed hospices. Not 89 offices. Not 89 departments. 89 separate companies operating out of one building. In a now-infamous exposé, a burrito stand and a tire shop were found to be certified as hospice providers .
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz has put California "on notice," halting payments to hundreds of sketchy providers. But the question remains: Why did it take the Trump Administration’s fraud task force to expose what should have been obvious to Governor Gavin Newsom years ago?
The answer is simple: In California, the fraud *never stops* because the politicians in Sacramento view the federal treasury as an unlimited piggy bank to fund their progressive utopia, regardless of whether the recipients are legitimate patients or organized crime rings.
The Human Toll of Administrative Neglect
For the progressive Left, fraud is often framed as a "victimless crime" just a few billion dollars disappearing into the ether. But the hospice scandal proves this is a lie. When a fraudster steals a Medicare ID number to bill for a fake cancer patient, they aren't just stealing money; they are stealing *lives*.
Consider the testimony of Lynn Ianni, a 69-year-old clinical psychotherapist. She went to get physical therapy for a shoulder injury sustained while playing pickleball. She was told she couldn't access her Medicare benefits because, according to the system, she was already dead or at least, she was enrolled in hospice care .
Ms. Ianni was not dying. She was the victim of identity theft by a sham hospice company. For months, she was locked out of routine medical care, terrified that the bureaucracy had stamped her as terminal. "Imagine being told in effect that you're at the end of your life when you're not," she testified . That is the human cost of Newsom’s negligence.
When legitimate patients are fraudulently signed up for hospice, they are often cut off from curative treatments. The scam isn't just about billing; it is about denying care to the living while exploiting a system designed for the dying.
Newsom’s Gaslighting and the "Racism" Dodge
When confronted with these facts, the California political machine did not act with shame or urgency. They resorted to the Left’s only defense: playing the victim. When Dr. Oz pointed out that much of this fraud is reportedly orchestrated by sophisticated criminal networks—including entities operating in the Armenian community the Newsom administration did not thank federal law enforcement for the tip.
Instead, Newsom’s office hurled accusations of "racism" and demanded a civil rights investigation into Oz.
This is the height of cynicism. As Larry Elder would argue, this is what the Left does when you catch them failing: they change the subject. They want to talk about "tone" and "microaggressions" rather than the $267 million stolen from Medi-Cal through identity theft rings . They want to talk about hurt feelings while Russian-Armenian mafia-linked operations are allegedly bilking $3.5 billion out of Los Angeles County alone.
Governor Newsom boasts about a "crackdown" and a moratorium on new licenses that was passed in 2021. But here is the dirty secret: the emergency regulations that were supposed to fix the licensing loopholes still aren't in effect . Four years later, the fix is still "in progress." That isn't governing; that is willful blindness.
The Great Looting of the Treasury
Conservatives have long warned that the welfare state is a leaky vessel. But California has taken it to an industrial scale. This isn't just about hospices; it is the entire ecosystem of the state.
The "West Coast Fraud" Elder describes is systemic. We see it in the High-Speed Rail boondoggle, where billions vanish into a train to nowhere. We see it in the COVID unemployment scandal, where prisoners and Nigerian princes collected checks. We see it in the $100 billion per year in social services fraud that Dr. Oz is now tasked with cleaning up.
The difference between a red state and California is the presence of political will. In Florida or Texas, oversight exists because those governments view taxpayer money as a sacred trust. In Sacramento, they view it as campaign contribution fuel for their allies.
The federal government must hold the line. The Trump Administration’s decision to freeze payments and launch criminal investigations is the only thing standing between the taxpayer and total collapse.
Conclusion
Larry Elder said the fraud doesn't stop because the "west fraud don't stop." He was right. It won't stop as long as the same corrupt politicians who enabled it are the ones asked to police it.
Gavin Newsom wants to run for President. He wants to take this culture of corruption, these empty storefronts billing for dead people, and this excuse-making to the rest of America. The hospice fraud crisis is not a bug of progressive governance; it is a feature. It is what happens when you prioritize ideology over auditing, feelings over facts, and political correctness over prosecution.
Until Sacramento is held accountable and until voters recognize that "west coast fraud" is just the logical conclusion of unchecked liberalism the stealing will continue. And as Elder might say, they won’t stop until the checks do.
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