This show proudly sponsored by Real American Freestyle Wrestling.

Welcome back to the Brian Kilmee Joe, Mary Walter, sitting in for Brian Kilmee, just a couple

days left until the new year.

It's very exciting.

Joining us now, Dr. Memment Oz, he is the Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator.

You can follow him on X at Dr. Oz. That's super easy. Dr. Oz. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the Brian Kilmead show. Welcome and Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Mary. And I'd say dramatic step up to have you hosting instead of Brian. And thank you for taking charge, taking the reins of the show. Well, thank you. And not only that, but I am cuter than he is.

Everything's better.

I hope he's listening.

That's it.

I'm never going to work on this show again.

I hope you're happy.

So the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services announced that all 50 states are going to receive awards.

Under this rural health transformation program, it's $50 billion initiative.

And the first thing that comes to mind, like, yay, I think this is great because rural health has really been hit hard,

especially when you have a lot of

illegals who hit some of these hospitals along the southern border and a lot of them closing.

And even as far inland as Colorado, we need to help these rural areas, these rural hospitals.

But then I hear that like, well, wait a minute, on the heels of all this Somali fraud,

we're talking about $50 billion.

How are there certain safeguards that are in place to make sure that this money just doesn't disappear?

There are safeguards, Mary, and there's a very big difference between Medicare, which takes care of older Americans, and Medicaid, which takes care of folks who are most vulnerable. They both need support. They both need our love. But within the Medicaid program, there's inherently an issue because we don't actually get to make all the decisions. A lot of decisions are made by the states. They just sort of give us the bill. And though the federal taxpayer is on the hook, it's not like we have a tremendous amount of insight

to how they spend the money.

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