Herschel Walker Misrepresented Role With For-Profit Veterans Organization, Falsely Claimed It Was Charity: Report
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A new report says Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker falsely exaggerated his ties with a veterans group that is currently under investigation for allegations of fraud.
The Associated Press took a deep dive into Patriot Support, an organization that boasts of providing mental health support and treatments for service members and the families of veterans. The article notes that Walker has claimed credit for founding the organization, even though it exists under the umbrella of Universal Health Services, and it was around for over a decade before Walker was hired to be their celebrity spokesman.
From the AP’s report:
Well before his candidacy, Walker received plaudits for his work with Patriot Support. His visits to bases were touted in military press releases. And in 2014, as a celebrity contestant on a Food Network game show, Walker won a $50,000 prize to donate to his charity of choice, Patriot Support.
But Patriot Support is not a charity. It’s a for-profit program specifically marketed to veterans that is offered by Universal Health Services, one of the largest hospital chains in the U.S. Walker wasn’t the program’s founder, either. It was created 11 years before Universal Health Services says it hired Walker as a spokesman, which paid him a salary of $331,000 last year.
And the $50,000 prize he earned from the Food Network didn’t go to Patriot Support, but was instead donated to a Paralympic Veterans program in Patriot Support’s name.
The report contradicts two instances the AP identified where Walker claimed to have “started” Patriot Support. As for the organization itself, the Department of Justice and several states brought a civil case brought against Universal Health Services over alleged attempts to defraud the government while Walker still worked for Patriot Support.
Prosecutors allege Universal Health Services and its affiliates aggressively pushed those with government-sponsored insurance into inpatient mental health care to drive revenue. That’s because, unlike typical private insurers, government plans do not limit the duration of hospital stays for psychiatric care so long as specific criteria are met, making such patients more profitable, the government alleged.
To achieve this end, the company pushed staff at its mental health facilities to misdiagnose patients and falsify documents in order to hospitalize those who did not require it, according to court records. In other cases, they failed to discharge those who no longer needed hospitalization, according to the DOJ.
Patriot Support declined to renew Walker’s contract for 2022, and the report says “there’s no suggestion he was directly involved in any wrongdoing at the hospitals.”
When reached for comment, Walker campaign spokeswoman Mallory Blount blasted the media while accusing the AP of “demonizing Herschel for being the face of an organization for 14 years that has helped tens of thousands of soldiers suffering from mental illness.”
“At a campaign stop Saturday,” the AP writes, “Walker said the allegations against the program were a ‘concern’ but added that he wasn’t sure they were true. Then he changed the subject. ‘I’m winning this election. People know I’m winning it.'”
Walker’s run continues to be a source of controversy among political observers, including his history of untruthful comments.
