Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced Tuesday that the Trump administration is deferring another $1.2 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California, its largest deferral yet, targeting the state's in-home care program over fraud allegations. Oz made the announcement during a White House event with President Donald Trump unveiling the new fraud whistleblower program.
"California has been growing that program 24% in the last three years," Oz said Tuesday, according to the Washington Sun. "That is twice the rate of every other state average in the country. Impossible for us to understand how that could be so." CMS has already withheld around $2.2 billion from the state over the course of this year, most of it for California's In-Home Supportive Services program, which compensates family members and other caregivers for helping patients with tasks like washing, dressing and feeding themselves.
California has protested the deferrals, saying the federal government hasn't provided sufficient evidence of fraud and that the growth reflects ballooning demand. Gov. Gavin Newsom's office previously called an earlier $1.3 billion holdback a "sick" and politically motivated attack, the Los Angeles Times reported, arguing in-home care costs taxpayers $30,000 a year compared with $137,000 for nursing home care. Fox News reported that Oz said tips from people inside businesses can help investigators find wrongdoing, part of the administration's broader fraud crackdown ahead of the midterms.