Since he took office in 2025, President Trump has pardoned 15 health care fraudsters, including five WellCare executives, reports Protect Our Care in a new report. These individuals, be they owners of health care businesses, physicians, pharmacists or otherwise engaged in health care fraud, collectively defrauded our government of more than $2 billion. Meanwhile, Trump has made health care less affordable for millions of Americans.
President Trump pardoned Paul Walczak, who owned several health care companies and had been found guilty of tax crimes. He was supposed to serve 18 months in prison. President Trump also pardoned Lawrence Duran. Duran owned American Therapeutic Corporation, a mental health company. He had been sentenced to 50 years in prison for committing Medicare fraud to the tune of $205 million.
In November 2025, President Trump pardoned Joseph Schwartz, though he was found guilty of stealing $38 million in taxes and sentenced to a three-year prison term. He also pardoned Robert Harshbarger, who distributed medications that were not branded properly and committed $848,000 in health care fraud.
Protect our Care examines these pardons through the lens of Trump’s purported efforts to take on health care fraud. The organization finds that President Trump appears to be using fraud as a tactic to punish Democratic states and poor Americans. Under the guise of preventing fraud, President Trump also enacted legislation that eliminated $1 trillion from Medicaid and Medicare, financially penalizing hospitals, nursing homes and other health care clinics as well as pushing 15 million Americans into the ranks of the uninsured.
Now, President Trump is proposing a $15.8 billion cut to the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s not how you address fraud, nor is getting rid of inspector generals, who are charged with identifying fraud, as President Trump has done.
In sum, Protect Our Care finds that corporations and health care providers are responsible for just about all health care fraud, not patients. Yet, President Trump pardons the fraud perpetrators and, in the process, takes health care away from millions of patients, leaving them without coverage.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Beware: Social Security scams abound
- Dental fraud: How to protect yourself
- Trump pardons several Medicare fraudsters
- Fraudsters banned from the Medicare program circumvent the ban
- Corporate health insurers profit by condoning fraud
