{"id":407744,"date":"2026-07-22T09:10:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/407744\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:10:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:10:34","slug":"rfk-jr-halts-medicaid-funds-to-california-and-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/407744\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. halts Medicaid funds to California and Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday he\u2019s stopping more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over suspected fraud.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not sending Medicaid dollars out the door until we have confidence that they are being spent lawfully and appropriately,\u201d Kennedy said at an announcement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said if California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) want the money to fund low-income healthcare, \u201cthey need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking at a press conference on new actions from the HHS and the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force on Tuesday, July 21, 2026. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz speaking at the anti-fraud press conference. JIM LO SCALZO\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Kennedy blamed the Biden administration and the Democratic leadership in both blue states for alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of protecting your money, they open the floodgates to theft,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThey dismantle basic program integrity and oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The health secretary criticized the Biden administration\u2019s oversight of Medicaid, arguing that former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra \u201clooked the other way while fraud, waste, and abuse exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scammers got paid,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThe taxpayers got stuck with these enormous bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy said Democrats have \u201copened the floodgates\u201d to fraud in their states. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is deferring over $200 million and over $867 million in federal Medicaid payments for Minnesota and California, respectively. The hold will be in place while federal officers review \u201chigh-risk Medicaid claims\u201d and document deficiencies.<\/p>\n

In Minnesota, the funding involves 14 high-risk areas<\/a> that were identified as suspect because of vulnerabilities or evidence of fraudulent activity.<\/p>\n

CMS officials suspect the questionable spending in California is rooted in in-home services. Over the past two federal fiscal years, California\u2019s spending in these programs went up 24%, while the rest of the country\u2019s average was 12%, according to CMS administrator Mehmet Oz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chairman of the FTC Andrew N. Ferguson speaks next to HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and HHS Inspector General T. March Bell during the press conference in Washington, DC. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cSo California increased spending at twice the rate of the average of the rest of the entire nation,\u201d Oz said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to CMS, California\u2019s frozen funds include $221 million in associated claims involving individuals, which Oz describes as \u201cunsatisfactory immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal officials also cited millions of dollars in claims tied to services allegedly provided to beneficiaries after they die.<\/p>\n

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Kennedy\u2019s announcement a \u201crecycled political stunt.\u201d . Carlin Stiehl for CA Post<\/p>\n

Oz said they\u2019re working with the administrations of both states, and Minnesota has already returned the documents to ensure the money is being well spent.<\/p>\n

Walz\u2019s office responded to the Medicaid cuts in a statement to The Post, saying that the \u201cTrump Administration is cutting more money in healthcare than they\u2019ve prosecuted for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom also said in an X post<\/a> that the announcement is a \u201crecycled political stunt,\u201d and that California is being targeted for political reasons \u2014 not due to fraud.<\/p>\n

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accused the Trump administration of making more cuts to healthcare than they\u2019ve actually prosecuted for fraud. Star Tribune via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The clampdown is part of a broader Trump administration effort to go after waste, fraud and abuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said the Trump Administration has expanded from using just traditional financial verification to go after fraud. To identify suspicious spending, CMS used AI, advanced analytics and \u201cother cutting-edge tools.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just a month ago, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced 455 people were charged for $6.5 billion in healthcare fraud schemes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The feds say this was the \u201cgreatest combined federal and state effort in combating health care fraud in history,\u201d charging individuals who used taxpayer-funded programs to pay for lux lifestyles.<\/p>\n

The funds will be deferred until California and Minnesota can substantiate their claims from the previous quarter of audits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday he\u2019s stopping more than $1 billion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3130,457,38117,16709,4226,13,37136,64733,3586],"class_list":["post-407744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-fraud","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-health-and-human-services","tag-medicaid","tag-minnesota","tag-politics","tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","tag-tim-walz","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}