Trump proposes mandatory prison terms for benefits fraud: Here’s why

On Saturday, President Donald Trump called on Congress to mandate prison sentences for individuals found guilty of defrauding Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while proposing legislation to hold liability that would expose an official’s personal assets to lawsuits if they knowingly allow such frauds to continue.

According to Trump, the first part of his proposal would establish mandatory minimum sentences for people who steal above a statutory threshold eliminating probation as an option.

Trump said in a video on Truth Social, “Today, I'm calling on Congress to pass legislation to address fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs.”

“If you steal from the American people, you will go to prison for a long period of time.”

“If you're a convicted fraudster who gets caught stealing from the American people a second time, your sentence will be doubled.”

“Under our proposal, if a state or local politician knows about fraud and has the ability to stop it, but does nothing about it, they can be personally liable for the full loss of the American taxpayers' money that they should have stopped and they should have saved.”

At the time, Trump did not provide sentencing ranges in the video or explain the legal standard that would be used to determine if an official knew about fraud and had the capacity to prevent it.

The Justice Department announced in June that its National Health Care Fraud Takedown prompted charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other medical professionals in healthcare fraud and fraudulent billings involving more than $6.5 billion in false claims.

Furthermore, the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division and US attorneys in 11 districts jointly charged 17 defendants between August 21 and September 18 in cases involving more than $1.3 million in alleged losses from Social Security benefit programs.