{"id":662931,"date":"2026-09-04T12:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=662931"},"modified":"2026-09-04T12:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:39:13","slug":"calif-medical-supply-company-receives-40m-from-medicaid-with-little-to-show-for-it-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=662931","title":{"rendered":"Calif \u2018medical supply company\u2019 receives $40M from Medicaid with little to show for it: report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A California medical-supply firm has received $40 million from Medicaid despite seemingly not being a real, functioning business, even as its owner and husband have become filthy, filthy rich.<\/p>\n

A City Journal<\/a> investigation by Christopher Rufo and Madeleine Rowley found that the California medical-supply firm HeroCare received over $40 million from California\u2019s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, while simultaneously leaving little public trace of a working business.<\/p>\n

Medicaid records cited by Rufo and Rowley showed that HeroCare received about $40.5 million from Medi-Cal from 2020 through 2024. Year-by-year figures were approximately $7,800 in 2020; $396,500 in 2021; $5.68 million in 2022; $15.56 million in 2023; and $18.86 million in 2024.<\/p>\n

The company portrayed itself as being in the business of mainly supplying pediatric respiratory supplies pertaining to tracheostomy, ventilation, oxygen, and similar home support. However, federal data cited by Rufo and Rowley showed that 30 percent of its Medicaid revenue came from urinary-catheter billing codes that had nothing to do with pediatric care.<\/p>\n

As HeroCare collected more and more money from the government, its owner, Curtis Kurkova, and his husband, Christian, got richer and richer, as evidenced by their real estate purchases: a $28 million Hidden Hills estate, a $1.1 million Riverside County home, a $4.7 million Sherman Oaks home, a $1.45 million Big Bear home, and a $9.8 million Encino home.<\/p>\n

\n

BREAKING: The two men at the center of our $40 million Medicaid investigation have locked their social media accounts. pic.twitter.com\/Za37G6RyEJ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Christopher F. Rufo \"\u2694\" (@christopherrufo) September 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, as they accumulated wealth, the couple proudly flaunted their newfound money on social media. For example, since-privated posts from Kurkova and his husband showed private-jet travel and luxury spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s when you buy something for your business, and the government pays you back for it,\u201d Christian wrote in a since-privated Instagram video showing him opening a box of shoes, according to Rufo and Rowley.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Christian posted a picture of him and Kurkova kissing on a jet. He captioned the image by writing, \u201cIt\u2019s giving Narcos, but the Moneys clean!\u201d<\/p>\n

Rufo noted in his CityJournal report that HeroCare\u2019s public presence is extraordinarily thin and includes a sparse website with little or no information about Kurkova, an empty shop page, a Facebook page with few followers, unanswered phones, and a mailbox that won\u2019t take messages.<\/p>\n

When Rufo visited the business\u2019s official address, things got even weirder.<\/p>\n

\n

EXCLUSIVE: A respiratory therapist named Curtis Kurkova billed California Medicaid $40 million, then spent millions on sports cars, private jets, luxury resorts, and an enormous mansion next to the Kardashian house.<\/p>\n

The experts told us it had all the red flags for fraud. pic.twitter.com\/kM6x8EzXno<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Christopher F. Rufo \"\u2694\" (@christopherrufo) September 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe wanted to take a look at their physical operation, so we drove to HeroCare\u2019s address in Chino, but the business wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Rufo reported in the video above. \u201cNext, we went to another of the company\u2019s listed addresses in Van Nuys, and there was no sign of Hero Care at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two experts who spoke with Rufo and Rowley said outright that the company looks fraudulent. One of the experts was\u00a0Sam Adolphsen, the former COO of Maine\u2019s health department.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuge year-over-year billing increases, with claims for multiple types of urinary catheters, from a specialty respiratory shop, billed to nearly identical patient counts month after month, by a provider bragging about private jets\u2014that raises a lot of questions that must be resolved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis appears to be, by definition, a credible allegation of fraud, in a state where the political leadership seems to totally ignore fraud,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Haywood Talcove, a fraud specialist who serves as the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, argued that\u00a0state and federal authorities should check HeroCare\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedicaid fraud often reveals itself through outliers,\u201d he said. \u201cHeroCare Medical is a California-based respiratory equipment and supply company serving medically fragile children, including children who need tracheostomy, ventilation, oxygen, and other home respiratory support. That is an extremely small and vulnerable population.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth from roughly $8,000 in 2020 to more than $18.8 million in 2024\u2014and about $40 million from 2020 through 2024\u2014is the kind of statistical anomaly that demands a serious investigation. At a minimum, DOJ, HHS-OIG, and California Medicaid officials should determine whether the services were medically necessary, actually delivered, and properly billed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Kurkova has evidently also written a very telling children\u2019s book:<\/p>\n

\n

Incredible, the alleged fraudster in our City Journal investigation self-published a children\u2019s book called \u201cThe Little White Lie\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/z3LLKeQaOq<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Christopher F. Rufo \"\u2694\" (@christopherrufo) September 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A California medical-supply firm has received $40 million from Medicaid despite seemingly not being a real, functioning business, even as its owner and husband have become filthy, filthy rich. A City Journal investigation by Christopher Rufo and Madeleine Rowley found that the California medical-supply firm HeroCare received over $40 million from California\u2019s Medicaid program, known… Continue reading Calif \u2018medical supply company\u2019 receives $40M from Medicaid with little to show for it: report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":662932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=662931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/662932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=662931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=662931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=662931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}