By Dean Maddox, Public Safety & Crime Reporter

California gets hit with a one point five billion dollar Medicare fraud bombshell, and instead of addressing any part of it, Governor Gavin Newsom jumps in front of the cameras and accuses Dr. Mehmet Oz of being racist. That is his whole move. Not investigate the fraud. Not reassure seniors who are wondering how something this big slipped through the cracks. Not explain what went wrong or how he plans to fix it. He skipped all of that and went straight to calling Oz a bigot. I wish I was joking.

Here is what actually happened. Oz posts a video talking about illegal immigrants receiving dental and vision coverage while seniors are getting denied. He points out a bakery in Los Angeles with Armenian lettering and says the fraud is tied to that community. Whether he said it nicely or not is irrelevant. The questions are legitimate. The audit confirms the fraud happened. The numbers are not in dispute.

Newsom responded by sending a long letter to Washington accusing Oz of making racially charged statements. He wants federal authorities to investigate Oz instead of investigating the billion dollar mess that drained Medicare dry. It is the most blatant form of deflection you will ever see. Someone asks why the fraud happened, and Newsom screams racism and runs away from the topic.

This is not new for him. Every time something ugly breaks loose from under his administration, he tries to shift the conversation. It happened with energy prices. It happened with crime. It happened with homelessness. It happened with COVID restrictions, when he told everyone to stay home while he had dinner with lobbyists at the French Laundry. Now a massive Medicare audit lands on his desk and he does the same thing again. He refuses to deal with the actual issue.

Newsom did not deny the fraud. He did not say the audit was wrong. He did not explain how the illegal billing slipped through. He did not claim seniors were not getting ripped off. He simply accused Oz of racism and acted like that settled the argument. It is political theater. It does nothing for the seniors who are skipping dental appointments because Medicare will not cover basic services. Oz talked about that. Newsom did not. Instead he talked about a bakery losing sales after the video. A governor should care more about a billion dollar fraud than a bakery’s Yelp page, but this is the priority he chose.

If the audit had flattered him, he would already be on TV bragging about transparency. Since it makes the state look incompetent, he is trying to turn the whole thing into a hate crime conversation. None of this answers the real questions. Where did the money go. Who billed it. Who approved it. Who knew. Why did seniors get denied while someone else sailed through every approval.

Newsom does not want to talk about any of that. So he talks about racism. He treats it like a magic word that can make every uncomfortable problem disappear.

Here is the truth. One point five billion dollars in fraudulent charges did not appear out of thin air. Someone did it. Someone approved it. Someone benefited. And yelling racism at the person who pointed it out does not make the missing money reappear.

Newsom can file as many civil rights complaints as he wants. It does not change the fact that seniors got screwed and the governor will not explain why. Until he does, this whole episode looks exactly like what it is. A political panic move from a man who would rather attack the messenger than deal with the billion dollar mess sitting in his own backyard.