\n In its latest effort to crack down on fraud in federal healthcare programs, the Trump administration is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California, Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n The measure, which follows the deferral of more than $350 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota <\/a>earlier this year, was among several anti-fraud measures the administration unveiled Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n \n The others include reviewing every state\u2019s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which is tasked with investigating and prosecuting fraud among Medicaid providers, and placing a six-month nationwide moratorium on new enrollment of hospice and home health providers in Medicare.\n <\/p>\n \n While the administration has been criticized for focusing its anti-fraud efforts primarily on Democratic-led states, Vance insisted that its intentions are not political in nature.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe want to protect Medicaid. We want to protect Medicare,\u201d Vance said at an event on the White House campus. \u201cBut we can\u2019t do that if the states that are administering those programs are allowing those programs to be fleeced by fraudsters.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n However, Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz criticized several blue states, including California, Minnesota, New York and Hawaii, for not taking fraud seriously enough. If all states don\u2019t step up to prosecute fraud through their Medicaid Fraud Control Units, they could lose their federal support for the program, which totals nearly $500 million.\n <\/p>\n \n State attorneys general received letters from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General on Wednesday about its stepped up oversight of the state units.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNoncompliance with your MFCU obligations can take your State\u2019s entire Medicaid program out of compliance,\u201d read a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which CNN viewed. \u201cThis means your failure to do your job as head of the MFCU has put all of your State\u2019s Medicaid funds in jeopardy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The Wall Street Journal<\/a> first reported on the letters sent to state attorneys general.\n <\/p>\n \n The announcements come the day before Vance is scheduled to visit Maine to discuss the administration\u2019s moves to combat fraud \u2013 which has become a talking point for Republicans as they head into the midterm elections in November.\n <\/p>\n \n President Donald Trump referenced Maine as a hotbed of fraud in his State of the Union address in February.\n <\/p>\n \n Oz that month sent a letter to Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, citing concerns about the state\u2019s Medicaid-funded treatment program for children with autism and demanding information about what the state is doing to identify and prevent fraud, as well as to recover stolen or misspent funds. Mills called the effort a \u201cpolitical attack.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Maine\u2019s Senate race, where GOP Sen. Susan Collins is running for a sixth term, is expected to be among the most competitive races this year.\n <\/p>\n \n California has been in Oz\u2019s sights for months. The administrator has filmed several videos in the Los Angeles area alleging widespread fraud among hospice providers and demanded information from Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has frequently tangled with the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n