Federal officials were in Minnesota on Wednesday amid concerns of a potential Medicaid funding freeze as they investigate alleged widespread fraud in Minnesota social safety net programs, referring to the visit as a fraud “fact-finding mission.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill have been leading federal efforts to address concerns of fraud in the state-administered programs.
“We want to stop fraud in Minnesota programs, and we have responsibility as the department that administers the programs — we have responsibility to taxpayers, to Congress and to the vulnerable populations that these programs were designed for,” said O’Neill.
O’Neill and Dr. Oz’s visit came days after CMS sent notice to the state, saying its plan to address fraud lacked specifics and enforceable timelines, and demanding the state revise that plan or risk losing up to about $2 billion in 2026 meant to help vulnerable Minnesotans.
“We hear a lot of future-looking statements. ‘We’re going to look at this,’ ‘We’re going to evaluate that,’ ‘We really can’t do much about making sure that the providers are legitimate because we have state laws that prevent that.’ Well, I mean, that’s not our problem. You’ve got to fix those issues,” Oz said.
