in improper payments<\/a> for community support services for children with autism. The audit did not allege fraud but identified problems with documentation and compliance.\u00a0<\/p>\nVance also used the speech as an opportunity to endorse former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is the GOP nominee to fill the 2nd Congressional District seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did not stand for fraud when he was in state government and he will not stand for fraud in the United States House of Representatives,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n
A day earlier in Washington, Vance told reporters that he wants to work with Mills on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d love to have a better conversation, better relationship and work very deliberately on this question of fraud,\u201d he said. \u201cCertainly, have an open hand, an open heart in this White House to working with anybody, including the governor of Maine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vance came to Maine two months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a \u201ctask force to eliminate fraud\u201d targeting state Medicaid programs. It mentioned Minnesota, where dozens have been convicted on fraud charges totaling millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The order also mentioned Maine, California, Illinois, New York and Colorado, saying that \u201cthere\u2019s strong reason to believe similar problems\u201d exist in those states.<\/p>\n
\u201cFraud and mismanagement in these programs constitutes theft of the hard-earned tax dollars from Americans paying into these programs, and of the benefits owed to Americans who need them,\u201d the executive order states.<\/p>\n
“As district attorney, attorney general, and as governor, I have always cracked down on fraud — often by working hand-in-hand with the federal government,” Gov. Janet Mills stated in a response to Vance’s comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mills added that her administration implemented license requirements for many Medicaid providers, “some for the first time ever, to hold them to high standards of care and accountability. And when the Federal government requested more information about how we address fraud, as the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did earlier this year, we provided a comprehensive and thorough response.”<\/p>\n
Vance’s speech, Mills said, was meant as a distraction from what the governor called failures of the Trump administration, including the war in Iraq and “crushing costs,” including high gast prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vance said Thursday that the administration sent letters to all 50 states warning them that if they don\u2019t \u201cget serious about fighting fraud\u201d the federal government will start withholding funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia, New York, Maine, Minnesota,\u201d he said. \u201cThere probably are five or 10 states that are just impossible to work with. It\u2019s clear they don\u2019t want to go after the fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANGOR \u2014 Vice President JD Vance criticized Maine as one of the worst states in the country for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[40446,13211,40444,3196,169,168,510,51,40447,40445,40443],"class_list":{"0":"post-73484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jd-vance","8":"tag-app-around-maine","9":"tag-app-in-the-community","10":"tag-around-maine-more-maine-news","11":"tag-decision-2026","12":"tag-james-david-vance","13":"tag-jd-vance","14":"tag-maine","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-publish-to-facebook-me","17":"tag-publish-to-x-threads-me","18":"tag-susan-cover"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116583350094997421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}