Kathrine Frich
He complained that the government was payin for people who stayed alive too long.
Families dealing with end-of-life care often face a maze of difficult decisions and emotional strain.
When politicians discuss the medical system, they usually handle these delicate final days with extreme caution.
One top health official just took a very different approach.
Hunting for fraud
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr appeared on a recent Fox News broadcast to talk about medical billing.
According to The Mirror cited by Irish Star, he joined host Kayleigh McEnany on Saturday in America to discuss a major government crackdown.
The administration has suspended more than 200 hospice providers in Los Angeles. Officials suspect these clinics are scamming the system, and Kennedy explained their investigation methods on air.
“We’re closing down the hospices. We closed down thousands of hospices in California that didn’t have patients, they were just billing us. And they way we found them is, the patients would just never die,” Kennedy said.
Bills and laughter
McEnany let out a quiet laugh before her guest continued his rant about the timeframe of terminal illness.
“And so, we can see we’ve been paying for this guy for five years. Usually if you go to a hospice as a patient, you’ve got three months left to live,” Kennedy added.
He complained that the government was paying $6,000 a month for people who stayed alive too long.
“These people were never dying. They just had the patient numbers and we were being charged $6,000 a month and just paying I think 8,000 of them, of these hospices. We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars stolen every year,” he told the host.
How the rules work
Despite the secretary pointing to a strict three-month limit, medical guidelines tell a different story. Doctors must certify that a patient has a life expectancy of six months or less to enter hospice care.
A patient can legally stay much longer. Physicians simply need to recertify that their condition remains terminal.
Viewers quickly noticed the gap between Kennedy’s claims and medical reality. Clips of the interview spread across social media, where critics expressed shock at his blunt language.
One person on X called his comments “outrageous”, while another accused him of wanting vulnerable patients dead. A third viewer pointed out that hospice provides vital ongoing relief for struggling families, rather than just a quick waiting room for death.
Sources: The Mirror, Fox News, X
