At least three U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday healthcare providers were blocked from the Medicaid payment portal after the Trump administration announced a federal funding pause, even as the White House said the program was exempted.
A group of Idahoans are calling on the state's leaders to protect Medicaid as conversations around cuts in Washington D.C. continue.
The ideas being proposed could amount to more than $2 trillion of cuts to the countrys public health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans over the next decade and could potentially push millions of people off the program.
At least 20 states were unable to draw funds from an HHS payment system hours after the White House ordered a pause on the disbursement of grants and loans.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that provides health care coverage to low-income individuals and families. It services over 79 million Americans.
The outage at least temporarily jeopardized payments the federal government makes to state programs, and sowed uncertainty for patients, doctors, hospitals and others.
Just one day after the White House announced the federal funding freeze, the Medicaid payment portal went down, according to Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggled to answer questions about Medicare and Medicaid, programs that affect tens of millions of Americans.
The Medicaid website was down, but the portal was expected to be back up shortly, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. She wrote on X that no payments had been affected and that they were still being processed and sent.
Protect Our Care, a liberal advocacy group, is launching a $10 million “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign that targets 17 GOP lawmakers.
Since the pandemic, hospitals in Washington have lost $4.5 billion, according to the Washington State Hospital Association. But CEO Cassie Sauer said finances for the state's hospital system remain "fragile.