The funds were given to Florida from a settlement with a company that was overcharging Medicaid for prescription drugs.
By Sharon Zhang ,
August 27, 2026
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during an event at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research headquarters on June 03, 2026 in Washington, D.C.Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
A Florida grand jury has found that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration misappropriated millions of dollars in taxpayer funds that were marked to help children get health insurance but instead went to right-wing political groups and the state Republican Party.
The grand jury found that state officials funneled $10 million in funding from a Medicaid-related settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, a faith-based organization which was supposed to use the funding to help poor children with health coverage, according to reporting by CBS Miami.
But the charity, founded by DeSantis’s wife, quickly funnelled half of the money to the right-wing group Secure Florida’s Future, and the other half to Save Our Society From Drugs in 2024. The funding was ultimately used to help defeat a citizen’s ballot measure, Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational marijuana in the state.
The grand jury concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally because “nobody will take responsibility” for the decision to send the money to Hope Florida or “had any memory of who made it.”
The money originated from a multi-state settlement with for-profit health care company Centene, which agreed to pay a $1 billion settlement in 2021 for allegedly overcharging numerous state Medicaid programs for prescription drugs. As many other states settled their cases, DeSantis’s administration ignored Centene’s request to resolve the matter, reports said, but finally agreed to accept the $67 million in 2024. The state decided that $57 million would be returned to taxpayers while the rest would go to Hope Florida, apparently bypassing the state legislature to make that decision.
The decision to give the money to Hope Florida was already highly controversial at the time, with detractors noting that it was DeSantis’s wife’s charity.
But the grand jury said they were told Hope Florida was chosen as a recipient because it “was compensation for ripping off sick poor children and Hope Florida’s mission and work aligned with the purpose of serving needy children with health issues.” In reality, the charity’s operations were a black box, and any plausible reasoning for the decision “was rendered moot by the fact that the money only stayed in Hope Florida’s account for a couple of days.”
DeSantis said on Thursday that the grand jury’s findings were a “lie” and that whoever leaked a copy of the report committed a “crime.” The day before, he said that he “wasn’t involved in the settlement agreement, but I’m very happy with how everything was done.”
News of the findings comes as the Trump administration has whipped up a frenzy about supposed fraud with regard to states’ disbursements of Medicaid — a campaign that the administration then used to withhold funding from Medicaid funds from the Democratically-controlled states of California and Minnesota.
A Florida grand jury has found that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration misappropriated millions of dollars in taxpayer funds that were marked to help children get health insurance but instead went to right-wing political groups and the state Republican Party.
The grand jury found that state officials funneled $10 million in funding from a Medicaid-related settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, a faith-based organization which was supposed to use the funding to help poor children with health coverage, according to reporting by CBS Miami.
But the charity, founded by DeSantis’s wife, quickly funnelled half of the money to the right-wing group Secure Florida’s Future, and the other half to Save Our Society From Drugs in 2024. The funding was ultimately used to help defeat a citizen’s ballot measure, Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational marijuana in the state.
The grand jury concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally because “nobody will take responsibility” for the decision to send the money to Hope Florida or “had any memory of who made it.”
The money originated from a multi-state settlement with for-profit health care company Centene, which agreed to pay a $1 billion settlement in 2021 for allegedly overcharging numerous state Medicaid programs for prescription drugs. As many other states settled their cases, DeSantis’s administration ignored Centene’s request to resolve the matter, reports said, but finally agreed to accept the $67 million in 2024. The state decided that $57 million would be returned to taxpayers while the rest would go to Hope Florida, apparently bypassing the state legislature to make that decision.
The decision to give the money to Hope Florida was already highly controversial at the time, with detractors noting that it was DeSantis’s wife’s charity.
But the grand jury said they were told Hope Florida was chosen as a recipient because it “was compensation for ripping off sick poor children and Hope Florida’s mission and work aligned with the purpose of serving needy children with health issues.” In reality, the charity’s operations were a black box, and any plausible reasoning for the decision “was rendered moot by the fact that the money only stayed in Hope Florida’s account for a couple of days.”
DeSantis said on Thursday that the grand jury’s findings were a “lie” and that whoever leaked a copy of the report committed a “crime.” The day before, he said that he “wasn’t involved in the settlement agreement, but I’m very happy with how everything was done.”
News of the findings comes as the Trump administration has whipped up a frenzy about supposed fraud with regard to states’ disbursements of Medicaid — a campaign that the administration then used to withhold funding from Medicaid funds from the Democratically-controlled states of California and Minnesota.
No comments:
Post a Comment