Medicaid payment portals are down following the Trump administration’s decision to freeze trillions of dollars in federal funding, an effort by the new president to root out “wokeness” in the federal government, multiple sources have reported.
A health insurance program for low-income individuals, Medicaid is run jointly by the states and the federal government. With the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip), Medicaid insures more than one in five Americans, or about 79 million people, nearly half of whom are children. Medicaid also pays for roughly two in every five births in the US.
“My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night’s federal funding freeze,” Ron Wyden, a US Democratic senator from Oregon, said in a now-viral social media post Tuesday.
“This is a blatant attempt to rip away health care from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed.”
Later on Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on social media that the administration was “aware of the Medicaid website portal outage” and that the portal was expected to “be back online shortly”. Leavitt said payments to providers continue to be made, but did not provide a reason for the outage.
A separate memo released by the office of management and budget (OMB) on Tuesday sought to clarify that Medicaid and other direct assistance programs, such as food assistance (known as Snap, colloquially “food stamps”), were exempted. The latest memo came after chaos had already ensued and as state Medicaid directors continued struggled to access payment portals, STAT reported.
The upheaval ensued after Matthew Vaeth, Trump’s acting head of the office of management and budget (OMB), instructed all federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance” on Monday. The memo explicitly exempts Medicare and social security, federal programs that provide health insurance and retirement benefits for seniors.
Conspicuously absent from both the original memo and Trump’s campaign promises was any mention of protecting Medicaid, which Trump attempted to slash in his last term. In January, the Republicans circulated a detailed memo with what Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families described as “draconian” cuts to Medicaid.
The freeze appeared to have affected numerous programs run through the massive $1.8tn budget of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS controls a vast array of programs, from the nation’s biomedical research agencies to Head Start, which pays for childcare for low-income families. Head Start program administrators have also reported payment system outages. Last week, scientific agencies within HHS paused public communications and scientific meetings legally required to distribute research grants.
“Any pause in federal funding of Medicaid – the largest source of federal funding received by states – would be disastrous,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.
“That such a memo could have been drafted without clarifying this question is negligent and suggests a callous indifference to the tens of millions of Americans who are covered by Medicaid,” Alker added.
It appears likely lawmakers were not told about the outage before it took place. The Washington Post reported that, while Medicaid had not been a target of the freeze, it was wrapped up in the broader order.
Josh Hawley, the Republican US senator of Missouri, told CBS News that he was told by the White House that “Medicaid is not, categorically not, covered by this”.
At the same time, some other US senators appeared to be working to confirm the outage through their own offices, with Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, issuing a statement on social media saying: “Can confirm. Connecticut’s Medicaid payment system has been turned off. Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid. Discussions ongoing about whether services can continue.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic representative, blamed Republicans writ large for the outage, saying on social media: “Republican majorities in the House and the Senate are backing this illegal sabotage,” adding, “They are ALL in on it. Every one.”
Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic US senator of Minnesota, said the administration’s “reckless funding freeze … jeopardizes everything from community health centers to cancer research to child care to critical infrastructure projects. It is an unconstitutional power grab that puts lives and livelihoods at risk.”
Trump’s nominee to head HHS, vaccine critic and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy, is slated for a confirmation hearing before the US Senate on Wednesday.
