• State Attorneys General (AGs) Are Stepping Up: With reduced federal enforcement staffing, state AGs are expanding their budgets, hiring former federal prosecutors, and taking the lead in health care fraud investigations.
• Medicaid Takes Center Stage: As federal enforcement focuses on Medicare, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units are prioritizing Medicaid fraud, creating a shift in enforcement focus and risk profiles for health care companies.
• Proactive Compliance Is Critical: Companies must prioritize internal complaint management, monitor their external reputation, and engage experienced local counsel to navigate the complexities of state and federal enforcement.

In this episode of Speaking of Litigation, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Zachary Taylor, Sarah Hall, and Jeremy Avila discuss the implications for general counsel regarding the expansion of state-level health care enforcement and explore how companies can proactively manage risk in this evolving environment.

What You Need to Know:

The U.S. Sentencing Commission (the “Commission”) has proposed amendments to federal fraud sentencing guidelines and is soliciting comments from the public.

• Simplified Loss Table: The proposed amendments reduce the 16-tier loss table to eight broader tiers, aiming to simplify sentencing and reduce disputes over marginal loss amounts.
• Focus on Culpability and Harm: New guidelines emphasize non-economic victim harm (e.g., emotional trauma) and introduce mitigating factors for defendants acting under coercion or showing early remediation.
• Retroactivity and Public Input: The Commission is considering retroactive application of these changes and invites public comments by February 10, 2026, ahead of a May 1, 2026, deadline for Congressional submission.

Read the full Insight here.

[1] https://www.kaggle.com/whitepaper-introduction-to-agents (last visited January 21, 2026).

Instead, the Court issued a 5–4 decision in the case of Bowe v. United States. Resolving a substantial split among the circuit courts, the Supreme Court held, per Justice Sotomayor, that a provision of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) requiring federal courts to dismiss certain previously raised habeas corpus claims applies only to state prisoners’ applications.

The Anti-Deficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from spending beyond their allotted funding and simultaneously restricts federal employees from working on a volunteer basis. The Act provides, in relevant part:

An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not accept voluntary services for either government or employ personal services exceeding that authorized by law except for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.

31 U.S.C. § 1342 (emphasis added).

During lapses in federal funding, voluntary services are only authorized in very limited circumstances, but the parameters of the “safety of human life” or “protection of property” exceptions have not been uniformly defined nor applied across the courts.