The Trump administration’s new fraud tracking website is exposing massive government losses and healthcare programs are at the center of the scandal.
The White House “Fraud Ledger” shows the administration has uncovered nearly $230 billion in fraud and stopped approximately $56 billion in fraudulent payments through efforts to identify waste, abuse and improper spending across federal programs.
The unprecedented transparency initiative marks a significant shift in how the federal government tracks and reports fraud enforcement actions. Previous administrations maintained internal fraud tracking systems, but never made real-time data publicly accessible in this format. The ledger provides itemized breakdowns by agency, program type, and enforcement action category.
The Department of Health and Human Services alone reported more than $90 billion in improper payments across its programs in fiscal year 2025.
This staggering figure from HHS reflects the vulnerability of large entitlement programs that process millions of claims and distribute hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The sheer volume and complexity of healthcare transactions create opportunities for both intentional fraud and unintentional errors to slip through existing safeguards.
“CMS held states accountable for the first time for Medicaid fraud, deferring federal financial participation of over $2 billion from California and over $500 million from Minnesota.”
Administration officials said Trump’s team stopped $46 billion of fraud in HHS-related programs, uncovered $96 billion and enforced $30.5 billion in recovery actions.
The tracker rated Medicaid fraud as its “highest-impact” anti-fraud action since January 2025 — finally holding blue states accountable.
California and Minnesota combined lost more than $2.5 billion in federal financial participation after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services cracked down on their Medicaid programs.
The decision to defer federal funding represents one of the most aggressive enforcement postures CMS has taken against state Medicaid programs in recent memory. States typically receive federal matching funds for their Medicaid expenditures, but CMS can withhold these payments when states fail to meet program integrity requirements or demonstrate inadequate fraud prevention controls.
Healthcare spending represents a major portion of the government’s fraud and improper payment problems. Medicare and Medicaid account for tens of billions of dollars in estimated improper payments.
These two programs alone constitute more than one trillion dollars in annual federal spending, making them the largest contributors to improper payment totals across the entire federal government. Their scale, combined with the complexity of medical billing codes and eligibility verification processes, creates persistent challenges for program administrators attempting to balance access to care with fraud prevention.
Federal auditors caution that improper payments are not automatically evidence of fraud. The Government Accountability Office defines improper payments as funds that “shouldn’t have been made or were made in the incorrect amount,” which can include administrative errors, eligibility mistakes or insufficient documentation.
This distinction matters significantly when evaluating the scope and nature of the problem. While intentional fraud involves criminal deception and warrants prosecution, many improper payments result from clerical mistakes, outdated beneficiary information, or provider billing errors made without criminal intent. Both types of payments waste taxpayer money, but they require different prevention and enforcement approaches.
The GAO estimated that federal agencies made approximately $186 billion in improper payments government-wide in fiscal year 2025 — bringing the total estimate since 2003 to roughly $3 trillion.
The cumulative total over more than two decades underscores the persistent nature of improper payments across federal programs. Despite various legislative efforts and administrative reforms implemented by successive administrations, the annual improper payment rate has remained stubbornly high, suggesting systemic vulnerabilities in how federal programs verify eligibility and validate payment requests.
The Trump administration has argued that stronger data-sharing and enforcement tools can prevent taxpayer losses before money leaves government programs.
The White House previously announced efforts to eliminate information barriers between agencies — saying better access to government data would help detect and prevent fraud.
Current law and privacy regulations often restrict data sharing between federal agencies, creating information silos that make it difficult to cross-reference beneficiary status, identify duplicate payments, or flag providers with suspicious billing patterns across multiple programs. Breaking down these barriers would allow agencies to verify claims against broader datasets before issuing payments.
HHS officials have also expanded the use of data analytics and other screening tools to identify questionable billing patterns and payment risks before funds are distributed, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Investigators have targeted Medicare and Medicaid fraud schemes involving false medical claims, phantom providers, unnecessary procedures and improper billing.
These schemes have historically ranged from individual provider fraud to sophisticated criminal enterprises involving multiple shell companies, stolen beneficiary identities, and coordinated billing operations that systematically exploit program vulnerabilities.
The White House said the new tracker will continue to be updated as federal agencies report additional enforcement actions and taxpayer savings.
According to administration officials, the website is intended to give taxpayers a public view of fraud investigations, enforcement actions and fraud prevention measures carried out as part of President Trump’s broader push to combat fraud in federal benefit programs.
The White House has described the effort as a way to “root out” fraud and recover taxpayer dollars.
