Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Photo by Gage Skidmore, from Wikimedia Commons – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)
A Florida member of Congress says she is hopeful that her request for a federal investigation into allegations of impropriety regarding the Hope Florida Foundation will begin soon.
“I expect them to. That’s their job,” said Tampa Bay Democratic U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, who along with Central Florida Democrat Darren Soto, contacted the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services and the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services two weeks ago, asking them to investigate the Hope Florida Foundation.
The foundation is the nonprofit arm of Hope Florida, the state welfare assistance program that works with nonprofits and faith-based groups and has been led by First Lady Casey DeSantis.
The Hope Florida Foundation gave $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement to two nonprofits last year. Those groups then gave millions to a political committee, chaired by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ then-chief of staff, James Uthmeier, to campaign against a proposed referendum to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida. DeSantis later appointed Uthmeier to serve as Florida attorney general.
A spokesperson for the Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General told the Phoenix Tuesday that the agency is in receipt of Castor’s and Soto’s letter.
“The letter has been received and we are reviewing for appropriate action,” said Zion Miller, public affairs officer for the Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General.
Castor said on Tuesday that the details that have emerged through the reporting of Hope Florida is “awfully sketchy on a number of different levels.”
“First is passing what are Medicaid dollars through nonprofits to totally unrelated political action committees. That’s illegal in the state of Florida,” she said.
“Number two, Medicaid dollars are state and federal dollars, because it’s a partnership initiative. And it’s highly likely there was a settlement of a court case that the feds are entitled to some of those dollars. So, I would think that would capture the attention of the HHS Inspector General. Especially at a time when everybody is talking about fraud and abuse in Medicaid — and here is a prime example.”
Medicaid cuts
Soto connected the allegations regarding the Hope Florida Foundation to the major tax and spending bill pushed by President Trump and passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives last week.
“House Republicans are proposing record cuts to Medicaid of over $700 Billion, claiming waste, fraud and abuse,” he said in a statement emailed to the Phoenix on Wednesday. “Diverting $10 million Medicaid settlement funds to a political campaign, rather than back into the program, would be the biggest fraud of all.”
While it’s unclear whether the federal government will investigate, the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald reported last week that an open investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation is underway in Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit, led by State Attorney Jack Campbell in Tallahassee.
Gov. DeSantis blasted that investigation last week as much ado about nothing, calling it a “manufactured political operation” created by Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, who chaired the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee earlier this year and launched a probe into the settlement during the legislative session.
The office of Mehmet Oz, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding the congressional request for an investigation.
Rep. Castor said that the taxpayers and citizens of Florida deserve answers.
“We just need to get to the bottom of it, and if there was nothing wrong, I would think that the governor and the attorney general would be forthcoming and cooperative,” she said.
This story is courtesy of Florida Phoenix.
Florida Phoenix is a nonprofit news site, free of advertising and free to readers, covering state government and politics with a staff of five journalists located at the Florida Press Center in downtown Tallahassee. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
