State Medicaid programs across the country are reporting they've lost access to federal payment portals one day after President Trump announced a freeze on federal grants and aid.
On Monday, acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Matthew Vaeth issued a memo stating agencies must halt “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance” to the “extent admissible by applicable law."
On Tuesday, state Medicaid programs reported they have been blocked from accessing the portals that provide states with federal funding.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote on the social platform X, "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."
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) similarly shared claims of states losing access, and multiple states confirmed outages to The Hill.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon that the White House was "aware of the Medicaid website portal outage" but had "confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent."
"We expect the portal will be back online shortly," she added.
The outage comes amid broader concerns over how Trump's freeze on federal aid will impact government services.
An OMB memo issued Tuesday stated, "Any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the pause and exempted from this review process. In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause."
During a press briefing earlier Tuesday, Leavitt insisted Medicaid would not be affected by the pause but when asked for a guarantee that no person on Medicaid would see a cutoff, she said, "I'll check back on that and get back to you."
According to Medicaid.gov, nearly 80 million people in the U.S. were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in October 2024. Of those enrolled in either program, more than 37 million were children.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services told The Hill it "is experiencing some delays / system access issues with the Payment Management System (PMS), but it is unclear whether this is related to the OMB memo or coincidental. Other states have reported similar issues with PMS," they added. "MassHealth is not halting any payments to providers, plans, or other payees."
Melanie Cleveland, director of communications for the Alabama Medicaid Agency, told The Hill, "It is our understanding that access to the portal has been halted temporarily, and we are currently awaiting guidance from CMS."
Christine Stuart, deputy director of communications for the Connecticut Department of Social Services, said, "The payment management system is unable to be accessed."
A spokesperson for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) told The Hill the program "is currently locked out of the Federal Payment Management System, this means that at this time AHCCCS is unable to draw down any federal funding including funding for our non-discretionary Title XIX and Title XXI programs."
The Alaska Department of Health said its portal access is currently functioning normally.
Updated at 3:23 p.m. EST
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