00:00At CMS and HHS, we're increasingly worried about the deep rot within Minnesota's Medicaid and social services system,
00:09which are supposed to protect the most vulnerable Americans.
00:12The more we uncover, the more it becomes clear.
00:15It's much worse than we were led to believe by state government officials.
00:19We'd previously learned that illegal immigrants were still getting care within allegedly state-only Medicaid programs
00:26that were actually using federal taxpayer funds.
00:30And because of that, we already withheld $1.3 billion from California, Illinois, and yes, Minnesota,
00:38which always seems to show up on the list of states with the worst fraud, waste, and abuse.
00:44But this is only the tip of the iceberg for Minnesota.
00:48We have an unfortunate announcement for the Wallace administration.
00:51They have to admit they were warned.
00:53Last month, we instructed the Wallace administration to produce a corrective action plan by the end of the year,
01:00which we received late New Year's Eve and found deeply insufficient.
01:05We don't want to hear, for example, that your state law doesn't allow you to protect federal taxpayers from Somali fraud.
01:12And we want a sense of urgency to fix this, as well as clear milestones to hold Minnesota accountable on progress.
01:19Enough is enough.
01:20I just notified Governor Walz we will begin auditing Medicaid receipts and defer paying on claims based on fraud, waste, and abuse.
01:29Until we can verify what is legitimate, we're going to defer payments for the 14 programs that the state itself identified as rife with fraud.
01:39That figure could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
01:43If the state cannot get a handle on this fraud, as we find more, we intend to withhold more payments moving forward until the state cleans up its act.
01:53This ensures that Minnesotans who are truly in need and eligible for benefits can access Medicaid services,
02:00but the state's going to be forced to clean up its act and stop wasting taxpayer dollars.
02:05The state mismanaged its program, and federal taxpayers should not be held liable.
02:10We should note that Governor Walz has a rainy day fund with plenty of money to cover any real shortfalls in the unlikely event these actions affect beneficiaries directly.
02:21This, my friends, is about holding Governor Walz accountable and making him take the steps he should have taken years ago.
02:28This is just the beginning.
02:29While there are 14 Medicaid programs that we know are high-risk, we suspect from our team on the ground that there's a long road ahead to clean up the fraud.
02:38We want the people of Minnesota to know that this hardship was caused by a complete abdication of duties by the Walz administration,
02:47which your state leaders need to own and address immediately.
02:50Our duty is to provide the highest quality health care for the most vulnerable Americans,
02:55so we can't allow further theft of federal taxpayer money from 49 states to underwrite fraud in Minnesota.
03:03We'll have more to say in the weeks ahead.
03:07Produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
03:10We'll talk about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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