Minnesota on Monday sued Trump administration officials Dr. Mehmet Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an attempt to stop them from withholding $243 million in Medicaid spending, warning it may have to cut health care for low-income families if the funding is held back.
The lawsuit, which names Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Shireen Gandhi as plaintiffs, asked a U.S. court in Minneapolis to issue a temporary restraining order to block the withholding for Medicaid, which is the health care safety net for low-income Americans.
The Trump administration on Jan. 6 said it would withhold $2 billion in Medicaid funding from Minnesota each year. The lawsuit said federal officials based the move on “vague assertions of ‘noncompliance,'” with Medicaid regulations, according to court documents.
The state appealed on Jan. 13 and, as of Monday, “has not yet been told how it is noncompliant or what it can do remedy” concerns from the federal government, the lawsuit said.
Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a news conference on Wednesday that the federal government would hold off on paying $259 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota. Court documents said that around $243 million of that total was deferred “for provider payments made in the fourteen services that DHS identified as ‘high-risk'” for fraud.
“Deferral is an auditing tool that is employed to question ‘a claim or a portion of a claim’ for which there is a lack of supporting documentation showing that payment to a Medicaid provider is warranted,” the lawsuit said. “Deferral has never been used to categorically deny funds to a state across entire service areas, as is being done here.”
The lawsuit alleges the administration failed to provide Minnesota with details about its decision, in violation of federal law. It cited legal precedents, including one that said Congress may impose conditions on states’ acceptance of federal funds, but “‘the conditions must be set out unambiguously.'”
Minnesota’s complaint further charged that the administration violated the Constitution because the withholding imposed retroactive conditions on Minnesota’s Medicaid funding.
It said withholding the funds was arbitrary, capricious and part of a pattern of political punishment of Minnesota.
The threatened cuts amount to roughly 7% of Minnesota’s quarterly Medicaid funding, Ellison’s office said in a news release. Minnesota could be required to significantly cut health care services for low-income families or other government services if the cuts take effect, it said. Â
Medicaid, which is known as Medical Assistance in Minnesota, provides health insurance to 1.2 million Minnesotans who would otherwise be unable to afford it. A family of four may qualify for Medical Assistance with an income at or under $42,759, the attorney general’s office said. Â
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it does not comment on litigation. WCCO has also reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
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