Vice President JD Vance and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listen to questions from the media during their announcement to withhold Medicaid payments for California on May 13, 2026.Jacquelyn Martin/ AP
The Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California after officials alleged that the state failed to prosecute fraud in its own Medicaid program.
“There are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously,” JD Vance, vice president and designated “fraud czar” said in his Wednesday announcement. “Fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications.”
Vance did not provide evidence of Medicaid fraud, though he did attack home care, also known as home and community-based services. Since 1983, qualifying disabled people and aging adults on Medicaid have been able to get services at home, allowing them to live outside of nursing homes and institutional settings.An essential part of the disability rights movement is for disabled people to be able to live in their communities.
“It provides everything from assistance with bathing, preparing meals, dressing, getting in and out of bed, shopping and even house cleaning, chores, laundry, etc,” Lindsay Imai Hong, the California Director of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, told Mother Jones. “It’s enabled so many Californians to be able to get the support they need to live in their homes and also with their families.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed California must explain hundreds of millions of dollars in billing and in-home services related to coverage for undocumented immigrants. But undocumented immigrants do not have access to Medicaid.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office posted on X that the growth of home healthcare placements saves taxpayer money as it keeps “more people OUT of far more expensive nursing homes.” Disability and care advocates are currently trying to mitigate cuts to Medicaid-funded home care in California, which Newsom attempted to do previously even before Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill passed.
Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, posted on X on Wednesday that the Trump administration was targeting California “solely for political reasons.”
United Domestic Workers executive director Doug Moore also labeled the attack as politically motivated in a press release. “The real scandal is the carelessness with which politicians disregard our community members in order to line the pockets of their billionaire friends,” he said. “Last year, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress gave away $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, by cutting vital social service programs like Medicaid and SNAP.”
In his announcement, Vance also threatened to halt federal funding to all states who don’t sufficiently go after Medicaid fraud. The Trump administration’s decision in California draws parallels to its suspension of more than $250 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota based on fraud claims targeting Somali communities that led to unsubstantiated, right-wing conspiracy theories.
