Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — For nearly 20 years, Maria would call her sister — a nurse in Mexico — for advice on how to manage her asthma and control her husband’s diabetes instead of going to the doctor in California. She didn’t have legal status, so she couldn’t get health insurance and skipped routine exams, relying instead on home remedies and, at times, getting inhalers from Mexico. She insisted on using only her first name for fear of deportation. Things changed for Maria and many others in recent years when some Democratic-led states opened up their health insurance programs to low-income immigrants...

https://x.com/doge/status/1946345134724886702Department of Government Efficiency@DOGEGreat partnership and collaboration with the @CMSGov team to help eliminate $14B in duplicative Medicaid and ACA enrollment. After identifying the correct databases and validating datasets, the CMS and DOGE teams were able to uncover 2.8 million Americans improperly enrolled in multiple programs.CMS will be working with states to delete duplicative enrollments and ensure that NO individuals lose their one, lawful health insurance policy. As a result of this effort, beneficiaries will now receive the appropriate level of care without placing undue burden on the American taxpayer.DrOzCMS@DrOzCMS·Jul 17CMS found 2.8 million Americans enrolled in two or more...

Unnecessary, Duplicate Enrollment Wasting $14 Billion Annually The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continue to crush fraud, waste, and abuse in America’s healthcare programs by stopping duplicative enrollment in government health programs, with the potential to save taxpayers approximately $14 billion annually. A recent analysis of 2024 enrollment data identified 2.8 million Americans either enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in multiple states or simultaneously enrolled in both Medicaid/CHIP and a subsidized Affordable Care Act (ACA) Exchange plan. CMS is taking action to ensure individuals are only enrolled in one program and to stop...

Live by the federal subsidy ... well, you know the rest. And if not, Robert Kennedy Jr just served up a big reminder.Republicans in Congress got thwarted in their attempt to defund providers delivering pediatric sex-change therapies. Instead, the HHS Secretary will act within his authority to deny Medicare and Medicaid funds to hospitals and clinics that provide these services, forcing them into a choice between funding for actual care and pandering to the extreme Left at the expense of children. National Review got the scoop:The Department of Health and Human Services will soon begin the rule-making process to prohibit...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. The information will give ICE officials the ability to find “the location of aliens” across the country, says the agreement signed Monday between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement has not been announced publicly. The extraordinary disclosure of millions of...

Everyone knows that the "big, beautiful" tax bill signed into law on the Fourth of July lowers tax burdens for families and businesses. It also averts a $4 trillion tax increase [that would have started] next year. That's enough reason to heartily celebrate.… Here is a list of some of the major policy victories: The law is the most aggressive federal advancement of school choice by allowing low-income parents to direct education dollars to private, charter or Catholic schools that are better for their kids. The law also expands eligibility for personalized medical savings accounts instead of conventional insurance. ......

A Massachusetts district judge extended a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the enforcement of a new provision that would cut Medicaid funding to certain Planned Parenthood health centers. Obama-appointed federal Judge Indira Talwani ruled that a provision of the Reconciliation Act, which would prevent Medicaid reimbursements to organizations providing abortions and meeting certain financial criteria, including receiving over $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in 2023, could not be enforced. The ruling specifically impacts the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, including the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. “Defendants, their agents, employees, appointees, successors,...

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said millions of adult Medicaid participants who will face stricter work requirements under the GOP megabill should replace foreign farm workers deported under the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “There will be no amnesty,” Rollins said Tuesday during an event at USDA headquarters highlighting the administration’s efforts to strengthen farm and national security policy. “The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100 percent American participation.” “With 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly,” she added, referencing Medicaid participants...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Democrats who opposed Medicaid work requirements in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” think “poor people are stupid.” Host Dana Bash said, “I’m sure you’ve seen and heard a lot of the concern, including, and especially from Republicans who are the most vocal in Congress, about the fact that those work requirements are going to be very cumbersome to actually prove. And it will inevitably force the people who need that Medicaid coverage off the rolls.” Bessent said, “Well, first of all, the Republicans are not the...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that President Donald Trump’s spending bill has given the Democrats a message to run on. Christie said, “This is what happens when you have events as the president has pushed them in a way that he wanted to see it done, and you have a very compliant majority in the Congress, as we saw on the bill that got passed this week.” He continued, “So this is a great couple of weeks for the president in terms of what he wants to accomplish, short-term wins. Long-term concerns, though,...

Funding for Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare accounted for 41 percent of federal spending in FY 2024. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to add $3.9 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, aims to rein in some entitlement spending by implementing work requirements for Medicaid recipients. However, these provisions could backfire by increasing administrative burdens and making the program less efficient.Currently, the bill would require beneficiaries aged 19–64 who apply for Medicaid or who are enrolled through the Affordable Care Act expansion group to document 80 hours of work or qualifying activities per...

A vanity that I have done in years.

A coalition of 20 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday after federal health officials shared data about Medicaid recipients with the Department of Homeland Security. “The Trump Administration has upended longstanding privacy protections with its decision to illegally share sensitive, personal health data with ICE. In doing so, it has created a culture of fear that will lead to fewer people seeking vital emergency medical care,”*** The lawsuit challenges the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide access to individual personal health data to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration...

With the passage of the BBB by the Senate today, one of the issues I was interested in was what happened to plans to eliminate Medicaid funding for illegal immigrants. And it's actually a bit difficult to figure out what is going to happen now.So the backstory here is that the feds haven't agreed to directly fund Medicaid for illegal immigrants anywhere. However, some states have rolled out versions of Medicaid which cover some illegal immigrants using state funds. California in particular has expanded Medical to cover all immigrants who meet the income threshold. However, that expansion cost the state...

Yesterday, there were a lot of rumors floating around about the ban on Medicaid for illegal aliens being stripped from the bill. Thankfully, that's not true. It's very much in the bill we just passed. You can look it up below. Page 602. Section 77109. Here's where the rumor came from: During yesterday's vote-a-rama, an amendment banning Medicaid for illegal immigrants was voted down. The clip of that vote started circulating online—and folks took that to mean that the provision had been stripped from the bill altogether. But that was just one of many "messaging amendments," designed to force Democrats...

Largest Justice Department Health Care Fraud Takedown in History More than Doubles Prior Record of $6 Billion The Justice Department today announced the results of its 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which resulted in criminal charges against 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General’s Offices across the United States, for their alleged participation in various health care fraud schemes involving over $14.6 billion in intended loss. The Takedown involved federal and state law enforcement agencies across the country and represents an unprecedented effort to...

The Department of Justice on Monday unveiled a record-shattering crackdown on the corrupt underbelly of America’s health care system. A jaw-dropping 324 defendants — including 96 medical professionals — have been charged in 50 federal districts and 12 states for orchestrating over $14.6 billion in intended fraud, largely targeting Medicare, Medicaid, and federal health programs meant to serve the elderly, disabled, and the poor. The takedown, spearheaded by the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Unit in coordination with HHS-OIG, the FBI, the DEA, and over a dozen state attorney general offices, marks the largest health care fraud bust in U.S. history....

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can ban Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs, reversing an earlier appeals court ruling against South Carolina's bid to defund the nation's largest abortion provider. The high court released its opinion in the case of Medina v. Planned Parenthood on Thursday morning, ruling 6-3 that federal law does not stop the Palmetto State from banning abortion providers from Medicaid. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. "To prove that a statute secures an...

DEVASTATING BLOW: Unelected Harry Reid-appointed Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough just STRUCK DOWN the DEFUNDING OF MEDICAID FOR ILLEGALS in the Big Beautiful Bill...AND defunding "gender-affirming care" under Medicaid and CHIP! No, I am not joking! A 2012 Democrat lackey is gutting the bill right before our very eyes! She says the provisions that limit federal dollars for states that give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits require 60 votes, not 50+1. She also struck out limits on Medicaid, Medicare and ACA premium tax credits for non-citizen immigrants, per Punchbowl. IGNORE THIS, OR FIRE HER, Mr. Thune ... The Senate Parliamentarian must be...

Groups like this fixate on the number of individuals with health insurance coverage, regardless of whether those individuals engage in fraud.The left is ignoring potential fraud to pursue its own ideological objectives.That’s the shorter version of a series of analyses regarding the House-passed reconciliation bill released in recent days by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The organization, and other leftist groups like it, fixate solely on the number of individuals with health insurance coverage — regardless of whether those individuals engage in fraud, or even whether those individuals belong in this country.The Kaiser analyses create state-by-state breakdowns of projected changes in...