Trump asks Congress for mandatory prison for Medicare fraud
He wants repeat offenders' sentences doubled and local politicians who ignore fraud held liable. He offered no bill text and no sponsor in Congress.
President Donald Trump asked the US Congress on Saturday to pass a law against fraud in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the federal health and retirement programs. He did it in a video that he posted on his X account, captioned "FOR THE FRAUDSTERS!" According to News Central TV, he recorded it behind the desk in the Oval Office.
The first proposal is mandatory minimum prison sentences for anyone who steals from those programs. Trump says probation is "no longer an option" for fraudsters, and that anyone caught a second time will get a doubled sentence: "your sentence will be doubled".
The second targets officials. A state or local politician who knows about a fraud, can stop it and does not would be personally liable for the full loss of public money. The video does not define how it would be proven that the official knew, or who would decide. It closes with a warning: "from now on, fraudsters, we're watching you".
It is a proposal, not a law in force. Trump did not present a bill text, a bill number or a legislator to sponsor it, and none of the sources consulted mentions one. In the US federal system, Congress sets the penalties for federal crimes, so a president can ask for them but cannot impose them by decree. No reactions from legislators or criminal law specialists were found.
The topic was already on the White House agenda. Since March there has been a task force, headed by Vice President JD Vance, created to fight fraud in those two health programs. In June, the administration reported 455 people charged and more than 6 500 million dollars ($6.5 billion) in false claims identified, according to Moncloa. Those are the government's own figures and were not independently verified.
The message came the same day as his promise of $5,000 per adult, which also has no law behind it, a month before the midterm elections of November 3. It remains to be seen whether any legislator turns it into a bill.
