3.5.26 Medicaid fraud, the landmark social-media trial, and teaching children about sexuality

Good morning, the Trump Administration is crowdsourcing the war on fraud.

We finally have another partner and looking for the fraud with the American public.

Also today a new tactic lawyers are using to hold social media companies accountable for

harming kids and later who should get the first word on sexuality.

The public school system, or even the church, should never be the ones introducing sexuality

to children.

And World Commentator Cal Thomas says the war in Iran may mark a turning point for the

people of Iran.

It's Thursday, March 5th.

This is the world and everything in it from listeners supported world radio.

I'm Mary Rankard.

And I'm Marna Brown.

Good morning.

Up next can't come in with today's news.

President Trump says Operation Epic Fury in Iran is not just going well.

He says it's going even better than hoped.

Somebody said on the scale of 10, where would you rate it?

I said about a 15 and we're going to continue to do what we have the greatest military

in the world by far.

Officials insist that regime change is not the mission, but rather the focus is on eliminating

ballistic missiles, Iran's nuclear program and its navy.

Still, the president says he hopes to see a leader in Iran who is not a violent fanatic

like the late Ayatollah Haminai.

Multiple leaders in a line of succession have been killed in recent strikes.

Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead.

Also on Wednesday, Pentagon chief Pete Hanksith and the nation's top general, Dan Cain, updated

the media on the military action in Iran.

Cain said that the U.S. military spent days targeting anything in Iran that can be used

to take down U.S. aircraft.

And we will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory

and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces.

And in a demonstration of confidence, the U.S. Air Force just began using its oldest

bomber, the B-52 in Iran.

It is powerful, but vulnerable, so its deployment signals that the Pentagon is confident that

it has devastated Iran's air defenses.

And Hanksith said that, indeed, the U.S. military is very close to owning the skies over Iran.

Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only U.S. and Israeli air power every minute of

every day until we decide it's over.

He said there is nothing the Iranian regime can do about it, adding that Iran's capabilities

are, quote, evaporating by the hour.

Hanksith also confirmed that U.S. submarine sank in Iranian warship in international waters.

That marks the first time the U.S. sub has destroyed a ship in battle since World War

II.

Meantime on Capitol Hill.

On this, the Yays are 47, the Nays are 53, the motion to discharge is not approved.

The Senate rejected an effort by Democrats to halt the military action against Iran.

Republican Rand Paul and Democrat John Federman both crossed the aisle, citing with the opposite

party, respectively, on that vote.

But aside from that, it was straight down party lines.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asserts that the White House lacks a clear goal or exit

strategy in Iran.

The conflict is widening.

Oil prices are already skyrocketing.

Wars without clear objectives do not remain small.

They get bigger, bloodier, longer, and more expensive.

But Republicans accuse Democrats of putting politics first in their opposition to the mission,

Majority Leader John Thun.

In their blind hatred of the President, just being opposed to anything that he wants to

do.

I mean, clearly there are Democrats, I believe, who understand that what we're doing in

Iran right now makes all the sense in the world from a national security standpoint.

Meantime, the Trump administration is working on plans to secure the straight-of-for-move

to ensure safe passage for oil tankers.

The straight is one of the world's most critical energy corridors, and Iran claims to have control

of the straight and has launched attacks on nearby commercial vessels.

But White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt told reporters that that is about to change.

I don't want to commit to a timeline, but certainly it's something that is being calculated

actively by both the Department of War and the Department of Energy.

They're working very closely.

Both secretaries are in all of the briefings on this subject with the President, and

this is, again, something they're monitoring.

And if and when necessary, the United States Navy will provide assistance to escort oil

tankers through the straight.

President Trump has also ordered the U.S. to provide risk insurance for maritime trade

in the Middle East.

The House Oversight Committee met Wednesday to grill Minnesota officials about rampant

Medicaid fraud, Chairman James Comer.

What we've uncovered in Minnesota is not a paperwork error or a few bad actors slipping

through the cracks.

It is sustained failure of leadership.

Republicans picked apart statements from Governor Tim Walls and state attorney general Keith

Ellison, both Democrats, about their efforts to investigate misused welfare funds.

The committee's investigation pegs nutrition fraud alone at $300 million.

Walls defended the state's decision to continue payments for autism support and food programs

despite reports of fraud.

We're not going to shut down programs that have things that are going well in it, and

we need to find that proper balance.

Turning attention to another matter, the committee wrapped up by voting to subpoena U.S.

Attorney General Pam Bondi for what it says has been mixed messages she has sent about

handling the Epstein files.

I'm Kent Cuffington and straight ahead of the government invites Americans to help

root out fraud, plus who should teach kids about sexuality.

This is the world and everything in it.

Thursday, the 5th of March, glad to have you along for today's edition of The World

and everything in it.

Good morning, I'm Murna Brun.

And I'm Mary Rankard, first up, The War on Fraud.

Days after President Trump announced The War on Fraud, Vice President JD Vance pinpointed

a major focus in combating waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

The main source of fraud, whether it's a small business or a bigger company as you have

people who are building the government, millions, tens of millions, billions of dollars, saying

that they're providing a service, but there's no actual confirmation, there's no follow-up.

The Department of Health and Human Services halted funds to Minnesota and a handful of other

vulnerable programs.

And centers for Medicare and Medicaid Director, Dr. Mimit Oz, then called on Americans to

join the investigation.

You want your input on how to prevent, detect and respond to fraud in government-funded

health care.

Whatever ideas you have, we're interested in.

What can Americans do to help fight fraud?

Washington producer Harrison Waters has the story.

Right before Valentine's Day, a team at the Department of Health and Human Services made

an elaborate gesture, and it didn't involve flowers.

Those dumped all the Medicaid data online for everyone to see.

More than 200 million rows of data, representing individuals and organizations in all 50 states, seeking

reimbursement for services provided to low-income Americans.

One in five Americans are on-government assisted health care plans.

Medicaid alone costs $618 billion in 2024, and HHS wants to minimize any fraud associated

with such programs.

After reports of widespread daycare and autism services billing fraud in Minnesota, HHS responded

by clamping down on reimbursements to the state.

Now the administration is moving forward with a plan to bring in more help.

We finally have another partner in looking for the fraud with the American public.

Hannah Anderson is Senior Director of Policy at the America First Policy Institute.

She also served on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s transition team.

She says while the Department of Government Efficiency was focused on cutting costs for HHS, officials

have also been compiling internal data to release to the public.

It takes one foot to download the data set, and you can start searching by provider, you

can start searching by what kind of services are costing the most, and really start tracking

and trying to figure out, is that provider in LA County actually providing the services

that they're supposed to be providing Medicaid or are they using Medicaid fraud to enrich themselves?

The Medicaid data set only shows provider data.

No patient information is included for privacy reasons.

The providers range from billion dollar companies to mom and pop transportation services.

The government already has several departments devoted to investigating and prosecuting fraud,

but Anderson says Medicaid has some unique flaws prompting the government to invite more

scrutiny.

The Medicaid is a partnership between the states and the federal government, so if a state

has decided that they're going to send in that or fragmented data, or they're not going

to take it on themselves to be identifying fraud, it gets even harder for CNS to find that

fraud.

HHS told World that allowing access to the information will help identify unusual increases

in specific treatments.

The data set covers 2018 to 2024, a time when the government dramatically expanded access

to Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because of the urgency, we weren't able to necessarily do our due diligence.

Tahir Aiken is professor of analytics at Texas State University, an author of the 2019

book Statistics and Healthcare Fraud.

He says the Medicaid data set is a helpful starting point for finding red flags.

So for instance, some providers might have built more than 24 hours per day.

So there are those like impossible scenarios that basically any person could track by using

their favorite gen AI tool these days.

But Aiken is a warning as Americans begin mining the data.

He says although some numbers look suspicious, not all overspending is fraudulent and cautions

it requires subject matter expertise to tell the difference.

We really need to validate those results.

And sometimes those false red flags may have bigger consequences because obviously there

is reputation at stake.

Vice President Vance told World that restoring the money that's been lost to fraud waste

and abuse is a complicated task.

Yeah, I mean, look, there are certainly ways to cause some of the money back.

It depends on the circumstances of the case.

When you're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially in fraud, that's

a big universe of cases.

Professor Aiken says investigators are likely to get back just a fraction of what's been

lost.

Even if we find fraud, even if we validated it in context, traditional numbers put the

recovery as 10 cents over a dollar.

So we would only be able to get 10% of the lost money back.

Meanwhile, Aiken says true fraudsters are getting more sophisticated in their schemes.

As generative AI tools get better and cheaper.

From the government side, we need to be also proactively getting ready, knowing that there

are really smart actors out there.

Whenever we do an adjustment, they do an adjustment as well.

For now, policy analyst Hannah Anderson is hopeful, HHS and the American public will shine

a light on where taxpayer dollars are going.

Having transparency and whether it's posting it on the internet or following the prescribed

channels to report fraud, but sometimes the best medicine.

Reporting for World, I'm Harrison Waters in Washington.

Coming up next on the world and everything in it, digital justice.

Last week, a 20-year-old woman testified in a high-profile trial that her near-constant

use of social media as a child hurt her mental health.

Now she's suing meta in YouTube.

It's the first time the social media giants are defending themselves before jury.

To protect her privacy, the woman goes by the initials KGM.

She says the companies built their platforms on purpose to addict children.

TikTok and Snap settled out of court.

This is the first in a wave of thousands of cases against social platforms going to court

this year.

The trial started in January and is set to end in April.

Joining us to talk about it is attorney Matthew Bergman.

He is founder of the social media victim's law center and represents the young woman.

Matthew, good morning.

Good morning, how are you?

And well, so glad you're here.

Well, tell us about your client.

How does KGM say these platforms harmed her?

Well, from the age of six, when she got on YouTube, she became addicted to social media.

It took over her life and robbed her of her childhood.

And over a period of time, she developed very extreme mental health challenges that she

struggles with to this day, anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia to be particular as a result

of these addictive social media apps.

Now, in the past, plaintiffs like your client have lost because of a law that says platforms

cannot be held liable for content posted by users that section 230 of the Communications

Decency Act.

So, how is this case any different?

Well, we filed the first cases in the country involving individuals such as KGM suffering

from harms as result of social media that were allowed to go forward.

Up until we started doing our work, any effort to so hold social media companies accountable

was stopped in its tracks.

The cases were being dismissed under section 230 before they even got started.

And we developed a different approach, not suing the companies for bad content moderation,

although they clearly do that.

Not suing them for negligently allowing malign material to be posted on its platforms,

although they do that.

But rather for intentionally designing an addictive product that hooks kids not by showing

them what they want to see, but what they can't look away from.

So rather than focus on the content, we focused on the design and the failure to warn and

courts have held that that is a different theory of liability than holding them liable

as a publisher.

And for the first time, allowed these cases to go forward, allowed discovery to proceed,

and allowed us to determine and discover many, many smoking-done documents that demonstrate

the company's deliberate intention to add dick young people to their platforms.

You know, some people are comparing this to the cases against Big Tobacco back in the

1990s, treating the platforms as a product that causes harm instead of a publication deserving

free speech protections.

What do you think about that analogy?

Well, not only is that a viable comparison metasome documents support that.

They analogize themselves to tobacco.

Evidence also indicates that the addiction to social media is a physiologic addiction, very

similar to the addiction to a substance or to nicotine.

And very much like the tobacco companies that focused on adolescents and young teens as

being their lifetime users of tobacco products, so have social media companies focused on

tweens as the greatest growth potential for their dangerously defective and addictive

products.

Matthew, if you win this case, what do you think will

happen to the platforms and the internet in general?

Well, it's not just this case.

The many cases that we have brought, the fact that we simply have the opportunity to

bring our case to trial before a fair and impartial jury, is a cataclysmic change in the

Met Landscape for social media companies, who they're here to for have assumed that they

don't have to play by the same rules as every other company.

And so we believe that simply starting this trial is a great victory.

But this is the new chapter of accountability, and we are hopeful that when the companies

have to bear the financial consequences of their deliberate design decisions to prioritize

profits over safety, that they'll implement modifications that will make their platforms

much safer for vulnerable young people.

Your organization, as we mentioned, is the social media victims' law center.

As representing thousands of clients, are there any other cases that stand out to you

in particular?

So the people that I represent are mothers and parents of children who have lost their

lives to social media, either through taking their own lives or through accidental deaths,

through dangerous challenges, or in other cases, fentanyl poisoning.

And I have never, in 30 years, been more privileged to represent clients, less concerned about

money and more concerned about justice.

That is quite moving.

Are there aspects of this case that you think are under reported?

What is significant about this case is it was specifically selected by the court as being

representative of many other cases.

And the young woman in this case is somebody whose injuries are not unique, unfortunately,

that are very representative of an entire generation of young people who have literally had

their youth stolen from them through these exploitative and addictive, endangered social

media apps.

If Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg or YouTube's leaders were here right now, Mark, what would

you ask them to answer under oath?

I would ask them, first and foremost, why do you produce a platform that you don't let

your own kids on?

I would ask them how many billion dollars is enough?

Why have you subordinated safety to profit?

And why have you been deaf to the cries of parents and the cries of children who have called

out again and again and again for safe social media products?

What is so important about making money that it subordinates any other ethical or moral or

legal priority?

Matthew Bergman is the founder of the social media victims law center and he represents

KGM, the teenager who is suing meta and YouTube.

Matthew, thank you so much for your time and your work.

We will be watching.

Well, very good.

Thank you for covering this issue and it's going to be a very, very interesting and informative

process.

Additional support comes from Boyce College, where truth comes first.

Every class begins with scripture and prepares students to live with wisdom, conviction and

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Boycecollege.com

From Covenant College, where students are equipped with a Christ-centered education rooted

in the reformed tradition, covenant.edu slash world.

And from free Lutheran Bible College, grounding students in the Word of God for life in Jesus

Christ, on campus and in person in Plymouth, Minnesota, flbc.edu slash world.

A balloon ride over East Texas turned into a harrowing rescue nearly a thousand feet

up.

Saturday morning, a hot air balloon slammed into a radio tower and got tangled up in its

guy wires.

It took 14 firefighters an hour to climb the tower to save the stranded balloonists.

Meantime, the basket just swayed in the breeze and ripped up balloon fabric wrapped around

the tower.

After the rescuers got to the pilot and passenger, then came the hard part, getting them down.

It took about two hours to hand the balloonists off rope by rope all the way down.

Firemen, Steven Winshel.

Thank you for the Lord being with us and answering prayers.

A lot of us have a very good outcome.

One firefighter who helped lead the rescue later had a surprise confession, despite nearly

two decades of this.

It really doesn't like heights.

It's the world and everything in it.

Today is Thursday, March 5th.

Thank you for turning to a world radio to help start your day.

Good morning, I'm Merna Brown and I'm Mary Rygard, coming next on the world and everything

in it.

Parents' rights in education.

Two weeks ago, a U.S. District Judge in Maryland approved a $1.5 million settlement.

It grows out of a major Supreme Court case last year about a public school board's refusal

to notify parents when teachers present gender ideology to students.

The parents who sued, and even some who didn't, wanted to opt their kids out.

The settlement lays out how that must now be done.

Even so, many parents find it awkward to talk to their kids about human sexuality, and

are tempted to leave it to the schools.

World's Ginny Roth spoke with a former teacher with a master's in Christian apologetics

who helps parents navigate the talk.

The Supreme Court case protected the rights of parents to help ensure their children's

education aligns with their faith, but the case begs an important question.

Who's job is that to teach children about sexuality?

Elizabeth Urbanoetz is the founder of Foundation World View.

Is it the job of the public school system, or the public library, or even the church,

to teach children about the gift of sexuality?

She equips Christian adults with resources to help kids evaluate ideas and get to the truth.

I think when we're looking at it from a biblical basis, that God has oriented society around

the family, and the family is the primary vehicle through which children should learn

about sexuality.

Urbanoetz says elementary school teachers should not have the first word here.

I would say, from a biblical perspective, that the public school system, or even the Christian

school system, or even the church, should never be the ones introducing sexuality to children,

and that is always the responsibility of the family.

And thinking about what age to introduce the topic, Urbanoetz recommends starting young.

While the age that I'm going to recommend will probably shock some people, but at Foundation

World View, we recommend that parents have the first of many sex and sexuality talks

with their children around the age of four.

She says there's two reasons to start the conversation before the world does.

Whoever gets the first word often becomes the expert in the child's mind.

So if we want our children to come to us with their questions, rather than a teacher or

Google or a YouTube influencer, we have to be the ones that talk with them about it first.

And that initial conversation sets the tone for how kids view sexuality.

Which when we look at sexuality from a biblical lens, we know that it is inherently good.

That God designed us in his image as distinctly male or distinctly female.

And he made the sign and seal of the marriage covenant the act of sexual intercourse.

Parents can make sure to start with the positive, but if we wait until our children are exposed

to some book at school or the secular culture in other ways, chances are their first exposure

to the concept of sexuality is going to be negative.

It's going to be how sin has corrupted this good gift that God has given us.

That requires being intentional.

Do we need to fight back against the darkness?

Yes, we've been called to do that as Christians, but we need to make sure that we're first

grounding our children in the truth, because we don't want their vision of gender and sexuality

and marriage and family to be what's wrong and you're like all the ways that we as humans

in our sin have corrupted it.

We want them to know what is inherently good.

Herbanoids recommends parents have three basic talks with their children between the ages

of four and seven.

The first one is about genitalia, just the correct name for body parts.

She says this is the time to emphasize that no one else should see those parts except

for a mom, dad, or a doctor during a health exam.

That's the first conversation, just the basic difference between male and female anatomy.

Herbanoids says the second conversation is the most uncomfortable, at least for parents.

That's just the basics of sex.

And the way that we recommend that parents talk about that is to talk about if their kids

have ever made a promise to someone, and then we make the connection to the act of sex.

Explaining that marriage is a promise and that God gave a special symbol for the marriage

promise to show it's serious.

On a different day, the third conversation, reproduction.

For this one, we recommend that parents take a walk with their kids and look at flowers

and gardens, and then when you come back to the house, they do you know how that flower

or those flowers that we saw got started.

They started out with a tiny seed.

And when that seed was planted in the ground and it got water and sunshine, it eventually

grew into a full grown plant.

And then we talk about, you know, God has given men and women something in their bodies

that are kind of like seeds.

And then you introduce the basic terms.

Herbanoids says if kids ask questions that are shocking or embarrassing, parents can buy

more time to think about how they want to answer.

Affirm their question with a smile on your face by yourself some more time and say,

we're going to talk about this some more tomorrow.

Thank you for asking that question.

Once parents have the foundational conversations with their kids, Herbanoids says it's easier

from there to have more and harder conversations.

Like about transgender or same sex topics, and the way feelings can sometimes trick people

into believing things that aren't true.

Or the difficult topic of divorce, a broken promise that sometimes has biblical justification.

And as kids grow, just anchor all of these things in scripture.

We're not talking about, you know, like going into like graphic detail about, you know,

all of their rampant sexual sin that resides in our culture and, you know, even at times

within our own hearts.

But we're laying the building blocks to help them understand that everything in our body

points to the fact that we have been designed.

And therefore we have to understand who designed us and what is the purpose of our design.

She remembers from her own teaching experience how easily young students can idolize teachers,

convinced they're always right.

She says that too is why it's important for parents to know what's going on in a child's

classroom.

We don't want to go in with pitchforks because we want to assume that those who are educating

our children have their best interests in mind, even if that they don't really understand

what that best interests is.

So we want to be kind of loving.

But our ultimate goal is we want to disciple our children well.

So we have to know what they're being taught about that ultimate goal or Banna Wood's

ads.

You know, it's not that our children would have, you know, like perfect marriages or

perfect sex lives or perfect families.

The ultimate goal in all of this is that as our children see God's good design, that

they would turn from their sin, that they would trust him and that they would seek him

and serve him all the days of their lives.

Reporting for World, I'm Jenny Ruff.

Good morning.

Good morning.

This is The World and everything in it from Listener Supported World Radio.

I'm Mary Rankard and I'm Murna Brown.

President Commentator Cal Thomas says the war with Iran carries with it both risks and

remarkable opportunity.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to end America's wars and now he's done

something no previous president dared to do, strike directly at the leadership of the

Iranian regime.

In a coordinated operation with Israel, U.S. forces targeted Iran's top command structure

among those killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kamani and dozens of senior officials.

For decades, the Iranian regime has funded terrorism, threatened Israel, and fueled

violence across the Middle East.

Now suddenly, the regime looks vulnerable.

In cities across the United States and inside Iran itself, people with Iranian roots took

to the streets celebrating the strikes.

The moment has stunned many critics.

Some media outlets and political leaders are already warning the attack could destabilize

the region, but supporters argue the opposite that removing the regime's leadership may

give the Iranian people their best chance and decades to reclaim their country, which

is what President Trump emphasized from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave,

be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.

America is with you.

I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise.

The rest will be up to you, but will be there to help.

There are risks, of course.

Iran still has proxy militias across the region.

Intelligence officials, warned sleeper cells, could attempt retaliation abroad.

But there are strategic consequences as well.

Iran supplies the vast majority of its oil exports to China.

A weakened regime could disrupt those shipments and reshape the geopolitical balance across

the Middle East.

For now, the outcome remains uncertain.

War always carries more questions than answers.

But if this moment leads to a new government in Tehran, one that abandons terrorism, restores

basic freedoms and rebuilds relations with the West, then this operation could mark one

of the most consequential turning points in modern Middle Eastern history.

And it would give the Iranian people something they've been denied for nearly half a century,

a real chance at freedom.

For World, I'm Cal Thomas.

Tomorrow, John Stone Street is back for Culture Friday, and Colin Gabarino reviews Disney

Pixar's latest.

That and more tomorrow.

I'm Erna Brown, and I'm Mary Rankard.

The world and everything in it comes to you from world radio.

World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says you have set up a banner for those who fear you, that they may flee to it

from the bow, that your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand

and answer us, versus four and five of Psalm 60.

Go now in grace and peace.