Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp, R-Surprise, speaks at a press conference on June 17, 2025, during which she and a MAGA group claimed — without presenting any evidence — that Arizona’s Medicaid system was rife with fraud, including giving health insurance to millionaires. Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
A Republican state senator and a pro-Trump group on Tuesday accused Arizona’s Democratic governor of presiding over a massive health care fraud scheme. But Sen. Janae Shamp and the MAGA group she claimed made the discovery produced no evidence.
And more than seven hours after making the claims at a press conference, the Patients First Coalition has yet to produce a report that Shamp promised would contain that proof.
In essence, Shamp and the Patients First Coalition, which was created to boost Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, are accusing the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System of failing to screen applicants for income and asset eligibility. The result, they alleged, is that Arizona is letting some 20,000 millionaires onto Medicaid and turning a blind eye to $6 billion in fraud.
AHCCCS received approximately $17 billion in federal dollars and $2.5 billion in state general funds in the 2024 fiscal year.
Christian Slater, a spokesman for Gov. Katie Hobbs, slammed Shamp and the “radical” Patients First Coalition for spewing lies to justify the Republican push to slash Medicaid funding and take health care away from millions of people in Arizona and across the country.
“Right now, her Republican colleagues are pushing legislation that will slash Medicaid spending in Arizona by more than $300 million in state and federal funds while putting up to an additional $7.5 billion at risk,” Slater said in an emailed statement. “This reckless legislation would jeopardize lifesaving health coverage for 500,000 Arizonans while denying an additional 100,000 or more from coverage.
“These heartless cuts would result in rural hospitals shutting down, countless jobs lost and people dying for lack of health care. Governor Hobbs agrees with Governor Brewer when she said, ‘you can’t kill people to balance your budget.’”
Exactly how Shamp, R-Surprise, and the group reached that conclusion is anyone’s guess. It’s also unclear if they accessed the names of AHCCCS enrollees, which is private information under both state and federal law, including the Social Security Act and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
Shamp told reporters that she acquired the information about AHCCCS recipients from “vendors,” and that she was legally allowed to obtain it because of her “authority” providing “oversight” as a “state lawmaker,” but she did not provide details.
Tuesday evening, a spokeswoman for the Senate provided two letters that Shamp received from the data analytics firm LexisNexis, which contracts with the State of Arizona to verify some applicants for Medicaid health care, containing answers to questions that the Senate majority leader posed about their work.
But those letters don’t include any information that backs up the claims she or the Patients First Coalition made.
The fraud claims made in Arizona mirror allegations the group made earlier this month in Ohio. A request for comment from the Ohio Department of Medicaid went unreturned.
The Patients First Coalition promised to release its report shortly after the morning press briefing, but as of Tuesday evening, the report has not been made available to the Arizona Mirror.
The Patient First Coalition was created by an Ohio GOP strategist named Shannon Burns and its initial purpose was to act as a “war room” for RFK Jr. during his confirmation process. It launched with six figures in initial funding right before RFK Jr. was set to go before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Since RFK Jr.’s confirmation, the group has pivoted and begun to focus on state level issues as part of the “MAHA” or “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Nothing on the organization’s website points to Burns, health lobbyist Jim Frogue or health care consultant Jeff Kanter, who Politico reported are behind the organization. The organization’s website mostly features stock images and calls to action, but says nothing about who runs or funds it.
Burns is a fervent Trump supporter who made headlines in 2019 for owing the IRS hundreds of thousands of dollars while working for the Trump White House.
An email seeking a copy of the group’s report sent to Matt Mackowiak, a long-time Texas GOP political consultant and Chair of the Travis County Republican Party, who is listed as the press contact for the organization, did not elicit a response. (Mackowiak was also involved in an election lawsuit that demanded the court order election officials to replace every Democrat poll worker with ones from a GOP approved list.)
During Tuesday’s press conference, Shamp said that this was not a “Democrat or Republican” issue, but did not disclose the deep MAGA ties of the organization which had been aiding her.
Burns’ organization also appears to be involved in the anti-vaccine space, including promoting an upcoming conference that includes a list of speakers with ties to the COVID-19 and election misinformation world. Among those speakers are Crom Carmichael, who called the events of Jan. 6, 2021, a “convenient riot;” individuals who believe 5G and chemtrail conspiracies; a doctor who allegedly gave out mask waivers for good Google reviews; and a doctor who has issued non-peer-reviewed “misleading” reports.
Shamp herself is no stranger to vaccine misinformation: She held multiple Senate hearings where misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines was spread. The Arizona chapter of RFK Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense sponsored the event.
Shamp sent a letter to Hobbs requesting “a full audit of Medicaid eligibility—not just for one category of recipients, but across the board.”
AHCCCS has not been without its issues.
The state has been grappling with recovering $2.5 billion that was lost in a scheme that targeted Native Americans as AHCCCS allowed approximately 13,000 unlicensed providers of sober living homes into its system for a 4 year period.
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This post was originally authored and published by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
