{"id":490631,"date":"2026-02-26T01:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/490631\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:29:13","slug":"trump-administration-pauses-medicaid-funding-to-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/490631\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration pauses Medicaid funding to Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration is temporarily halting $259 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota, Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Vance said the payments will be paused \u201cuntil the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that\u2019s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news of the temporary halting of the massive amount of federal funding \u2014\u00a0which provides health insurance to low-income people \u2014\u00a0comes as the state has been a target of the federal government following allegations of fraud perpetrated by child care providers in the state. In December, federal officials froze $185 million<\/a> in child care funds to Minnesota, and last month, the administration announced it was\u00a0freezing $10 billion in funding<\/a> for social services programs in five Democratic-led states, including Minnesota.<\/p>\n

The latest news also follows President Donald Trump\u2019s announcement at the State of the Union address Tuesday night<\/a> that he was tasking the vice president with waging a \u201cwar on fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Wednesday that officials identified \u201cscammers\u201d who he claimed \u201chijacked \u2026 a certain part of the Minnesota Medicaid system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors have\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0there was large-scale social services fraud in Minnesota,\u00a0with\u00a0dozens<\/a>\u00a0of people \u2014\u00a0many of whom are Somalis \u2014 having been convicted of stealing more than $1 billion in public funds intended for food, housing and services for people with disabilities. But the administration did not provide detailed evidence on Wednesday of the alleged large-scale Medicaid fraud in Minnesota that Oz claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,\u201d Oz said. Generally, undocumented people are not able to be<\/a> enrolled in Medicaid. <\/p>\n

Vance mentioned a program that he said claimed to offer after-school services to autistic children but did not actually do so, though he did not offer any identifying information.<\/p>\n

Oz added that the top fraudulent biller in the state \u201csubmitted 450 days where they claim they were working more than 24 hours a day,\u201d but also did not provide corroborating information. <\/p>\n

According to the health policy research organization KFF, Medicaid covers nearly 1.2 million<\/a>\u00a0kids and adults in Minnesota, more than half of whom are nursing home residents. More than three-quarters of Medicaid enrollees in the state are working full time, that data also shows.<\/p>\n

Oz said the federal government will only release the funds \u201cafter they propose an act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem,\u201d adding that Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., has 60 days to do so. He suggested similar announcements to come in other states \u201csoon,\u201d and mentioned Florida, New York and California as potential future targets.<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJulianne McShane<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJulianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"MS<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02026 Versant Media, LLC<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is temporarily halting $259 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota, Vice President JD Vance announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-490631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}