Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s Health and Human Services secretary, has stopped more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to two states, California and Minnesota, because officials there have refused to document that the payments they’re making are legitimate.
If Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, and Gov. Tim Walz in Minnesota, both far-left Democrats, want the money to fund low-income healthcare, “they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate,” Kennedy announced.
Of course in Minnesota there have been estimates of social services program fraud as high as $9 billion in recent months. Dozens have been charged and convicted in cases as blatantly fraudulent as someone setting up a “daycare” and billing the government millions of dollars for meal costs reimbursement, when there were no meals, no center, and in fact no children.
Kennedy said, “We are not sending Medicaid dollars out the door until we have confidence that they are being spent lawfully and appropriately,” Kennedy said.
BREAKING: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Trump administration is pausing more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over suspected fraud and noncompliance, saying the states must provide documentation showing the payments are… pic.twitter.com/5yX329Mpnw
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 21, 2026
RFK Jr. Pauses Medicaid Payments to California, Minnesota https://t.co/4IyOzOJYEk pic.twitter.com/Yd0S0nkbG6
— New York Post (@nypost) July 21, 2026
A report at the New York Post said Kennedy pointed out that it was the Joe Biden administration as well as Democrat leaders in both of those states who have allegedly misused taxpayer dollars.
“Instead of protecting your money, they open the floodgates to theft,” Kennedy said. “They dismantle basic program integrity and oversight.”
The move appears to be part of the campaign by the administration of President Donald Trump to attack waste, fraud and abuse. Just last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced 455 people were charged for $6.5 billion in healthcare fraud schemes.
There have been multiple cases of people, in Minnesota largely Somali immigrants, buying luxury homes and pricey vehicles with the proceeds of their social services programs, which often are little more than a piece of paper and a bank account to accept federal money.
The details include that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is withholding about $867 million from California and about $200 million from Minnesota during a period when federal officials are reviewing what they consider high-risk Medicaid claims and documentation deficiencies.
CMS chief Dr. Mehmet Oz explained there have been found repeated irregularities in both states. The fouls include claims submitted for deceased beneficiaries, providers previously flagged through fraud detection systems and spending patterns federal officials said were significant outliers.
Oz said, “If it smells like fraud, we’re not paying for it anymore.”
Kennedy explained the HHS secretary for Biden, Xavier Becerra, weakened anti-fraud efforts protecting taxpayers by cutting program integrity staffing.
He said, “The scammers got paid. The taxpayers got stuck with these enormous bills.”
