{"id":795127,"date":"2026-05-14T05:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795127\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T05:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:29:11","slug":"trump-administration-will-withhold-1-3-billion-in-medicaid-payments-to-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795127\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Will Withhold $1.3 Billion in Medicaid Payments to California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The Trump administration will withhold $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid payments from California, Vice President JD Vance announced on Wednesday, saying the state had failed to combat fraud in the public health insurance program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThe state of California has not taken fraud very seriously,\u201d Mr. Vance said at a White House news conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The vice president also announced an audit of state-level watchdog agencies called Medicaid fraud control units, which are meant to ferret out inappropriate spending. The administration sent letters to the offices on Wednesday, asking them to prove that they were \u201ceffectively and aggressively\u201d combating Medicaid fraud, Mr. Vance said. He added that they could also lose funds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The announcements were part of the administration\u2019s growing focus on fraud in public health insurance programs. In March, President Trump established <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/03\/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">a task force<\/a> to crack down on the misuse of public funds in federal programs, appointing Mr. Vance as the leader of the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">So far, the actions have focused on Democratic states. In February, the administration halted <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/25\/us\/politics\/medicaid-funds-minnesota.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$259 million<\/a> in payments to Minnesota, after a major welfare scandal. Minnesota has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/03\/us\/minnesota-medicaid-trump-lawsuit-fraud.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">challenged that decision in court<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and another task force member, has frequently pointed to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/22\/us\/california-hospice-fraud.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">California\u2019s hospice industry<\/a> as a prime example of fraud, noting that a third of all hospice providers were in one city: Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is something clearly wrong,\u201d Dr. Oz said at a recent event hosted by the Paragon Institute, a conservative health policy think tank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">On Wednesday, Medicare announced it was enacting a six-month moratorium on approving new hospice providers, as the agency aims to investigate and identify possible cases of fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration will withhold $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid payments from California, Vice President JD Vance announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":795128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[276,36730,5959,315758,210,1141,23531,1142,260139,3170,3235,260138,3663,131643,277,67,16852,132,68,83837,324447],"class_list":{"0":"post-795127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-centers-for-medicare-and-medicaid-services","10":"tag-donald-j","11":"tag-frauds-and-swindling","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-health-care","14":"tag-health-insurance-and-managed-care","15":"tag-healthcare","16":"tag-j-d","17":"tag-medicaid","18":"tag-medicare","19":"tag-mehmet-c","20":"tag-minnesota","21":"tag-oz","22":"tag-trump","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-vance","28":"tag-welfare-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116571286370969257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}