Medicaid Head Falsely Claims $1bn Is Being Spent On Healthcare For ‘illegal Immigrants’, Say Experts

The administrator for nan Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Mehmet Oz, precocious claimed that an audit revealed “more than $1bn of national payer dollars were being spent connected backing Medicaid for forbidden immigrants”, but experts opportunity nan audits were unrelated to immigration, and that rhetoric for illustration this could make migrant families – sloppy of ineligible position – acrophobic to activity basal aesculapian care.

Leo Cuello, a investigation professor astatine Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, noted that he has not “seen what this audit is”, but “based connected nan reporting, it appears that it is related to administrative errors successful authorities claiming for matching funds, which is simply a comparatively communal occurrence, and which CMS monitors intimately arsenic they should”.

For example, it is communal for states to inquire for national reimbursement for programs that are expected to person authorities backing exclusively, specified arsenic Meals connected Wheels. Cuello said these types of audits are “the astir vanilla and normal point that happens each nan time. States are perpetually sending CMS claims, and CMS is perpetually reviewing whether aliases not they’re paying thing properly.” Reporting from Oregon Live and KFF confirms that nan audits were routine.

What is not normal is for a CMS administrator, for illustration Mehmet Oz, to station astir these audits connected societal media, Cuello said. In his X post, Oz claimed that “Democrats are demanding nan repeal of nan President’s Working Families Tax Cuts authorities successful bid for their votes to reopen nan government. This rule wisely strengthened our expertise to limit national dollars from being spent connected wellness attraction for forbidden immigrants.”

“The Oz tweet mixes apples and oranges because it talks astir a very circumstantial audit, but past tries to put that audit into nan discourse of nan broader conflict astir HR1 [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act] and nan Affordable Care Act enhanced premium taxation credits and nan shutdown,” Cuello said.

But, Cuello added, these audits and nan shutdown are wholly unrelated.

“More importantly, nan Oz tweet repeats an inaccuracy that has been said galore times astatine this point,” he continued, which is that Republicans are pushing nan One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Affordable Care Act taxation in installments repeals successful bid to limit wellness sum for undocumented immigrants. These measures would chiefly region sum for US citizens, not undocumented immigrants, Cuello said.

The CMS did not respond to nan Guardian’s petition for comment.

Oz’s declare that undocumented immigrants costs nan state $1bn successful unlawful Medicaid sum is highly unlikely, says Nina Yamanis, a professor astatine American University’s School of International Service.

Yamanis added that she “can’t ideate you could” get connected Medicaid while undocumented. When verifying Medicaid eligibility, “if a lawful resident does not person a Social Security number, nan authorities confirms their ineligible position by checking a database from homeland security, arsenic good arsenic verifying circumstantial migration documents”, she said.

Even if that $1bn fig were real, Cuello said, it’s “about one-tenth of 1% of nan trillion dollars that was trim retired of nan Medicaid program, and those cuts target US citizens”.

While nan rhetoric successful Oz’s station mightiness beryllium mostly untrue, it adds to an ambiance successful which undocumented immigrants are exposed and targeted.

Yamanis said: “It’s exacerbating a problematic situation.” Lawfully coming immigrants cannot motion up for Medicaid until they’ve completed a five-year waiting period. Now, Yamanis said, she’s proceeding accounts of lawfully coming immigrants avoiding signing up for recently disposable Medicaid description s successful North Carolina because they’re acrophobic of being punished by nan system.

“It’s really unfortunate,” she said.

Cuello doubts Oz’s X posts astir nan audits will adhd excessively overmuch to this fear: “There’s already specified a deafening sound and fearfulness astir nan [immigrant] organization that this is conscionable 1 much straw connected nan pile. I don’t spot this being a straw that breaks nan camel’s back. People are already not going to nan expert because they’re acrophobic to spell to nan doctor,” he said.

When group are acrophobic to entree care, it worsens wellness outcomes for everyone – not conscionable for migrant communities, Yamanis said. HIV infections person been expanding among Latinos complete nan past 10 years “where different races and ethnicities remained flat”, she said. That’s owed to “access to healthcare, connection barriers, fears of deportation and besides migration status”, she added.

“When we person Latinos who are not accessing testing aliases treatment, it’s problematic, because that intends that HIV is spreading among each of us,” she said, earlier emphasizing that those who are nan astir astatine consequence are besides nan astir acrophobic to entree healthcare now.

“In nan US, cheery men and trans women are much astatine consequence for HIV, and if they’re immigrants and Latino, they thin to travel from countries wherever they were discriminated against, often pinch violence, and they really don’t want to spell back,” Yamanis continued. “So nan threat of deportation is overmuch worse for that community.”