Overview
- CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz posted preliminary audit findings citing California, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Washington state, Colorado, and Oregon for using federal Medicaid funds on undocumented immigrants.
- The administration says it will recover the money and has opened probes, with Oz asserting that some jurisdictions have begun refunding funds after being notified.
- The audit tallies roughly $1.351 billion in questioned spending, with California over $1 billion, Illinois about $30 million, and Oregon around $5–5.5 million.
- State officials, including Colorado’s Medicaid agency and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office, publicly rejected the findings as wrong or based on faulty data.
- Coverage highlights legal and accounting complexities such as EMTALA’s emergency-care requirement and debates over how states separate state-only spending from federal Medicaid dollars.