WASHINGTON (Reuters) – 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.
Mandatory programs like the joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor and the SNAP food assistance program were excluded from the U.S. funding pause, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget told lawmakers in a letter.
Meanwhile, however, Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said doctors and hospitals in all 50 states could not access the payment portals, freezing access to healthcare.
“My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night’s federal funding freeze. This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed,” Wyden wrote on X.
Fellow Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy separately said providers in his state cannot get paid after the Medicaid payment system was turned off, adding in his post on X that “discussions (were) ongoing about whether services can continue.”
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, asked whether Medicaid was cut off as part of OMB’s funding pause and whether she could guarantee that individuals on Medicaid would not be affected, said at a briefing, “I’ll check back on that and get back to you.”
(Reporting by Bo Erickson, Ismail Shakil, Susan Heavey, Andrea Shalal and Costas Pitas; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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