The federal government is continuing efforts to strengthen Medicaid program integrity, announcing Tuesday the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin providing states new eligibility information.
Starting today, the agency will send monthly enrollment reports containing lists of people with unconfirmed citizenship and immigration status, the agency said in a news release. These individuals were not found in other federal databases such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program.
The new process will make sure Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees are citizens, nationals or have a “satisfactory immigration status,” the agency said.
“Medicaid is a lifeline for vulnerable Americans—and I will protect it from abuse,” said Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a statement. “We are tightening oversight of enrollment to safeguard taxpayer dollars and guarantee that these vital programs serve only those who are truly eligible under the law.”
States are told they must change an individual’s coverage and enforce eligibility rules after reviewing the cases they receive from the federal government.
The Trump administration has aimed to rein in Medicaid spending and cut waste, fraud and abuse, primarily through the flagship reconciliation bill passed this summer.
Privacy experts sounded the alarm in March when President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring the HHS to modify guidance that restricted access to unclassified records, after the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, had already accessed sensitive systems at the CMS.
A federal judge told the HHS this week to quit handing sensitive information of Medicaid enrollees over to deportation officials, reported the Associated Press.