Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The federal government is pausing more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to two states, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is withholding more than $867 million from California and more than $200 million from Minnesota.
Advanced analytics, identified through financial investigation and artificial intelligence, identified suspicious activity and potential fraud, officials said.
“Every dollar the federal government allows to be lost to fraud, waste, and abuse is a dollar stolen from American patients and the American taxpayer. That’s money that should be going to legitimate health care,” Kennedy told a press conference in Washington.
He added later, “If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, told The Epoch Times via email, “The Trump Administration is cutting more money in healthcare than they’ve prosecuted for fraud. The math doesn’t add up. They’re not punishing fraudsters, they’re punishing children, seniors, working families, and people with disabilities. This is about cutting healthcare for people they don’t care about in their campaign of retribution against Minnesota.”
Walz’s office said that he has been combating Medicaid fr
