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Mehmet Oz Says Eight States Spent $1.8 Billion in Medicaid Funds on Care for Undocumented Immigrants
MLN — 20 JAN 2026: The Trump administration has identified $1.8 billion in Medicaid funds that it says were improperly spent on health care for undocumented immigrants across eight U.S. states, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz.
Oz said the funds were uncovered through an ongoing federal review of state Medicaid programs. The states cited include California, Illinois, Washington, Colorado and Oregon, among others.
“In October, we flagged $1.3 billion in Medicaid funds that 6 states may have unlawfully spent on health care for illegal immigrants,” Oz said in a post on X. “Since then, we’ve gathered more data and the total has grown to over $1.8 billion across 8 states.”
Oz said federal law prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for non-emergency health care for undocumented immigrants and said states must provide documentation if they are using state funds instead.
“It’s against the law to spend federal Medicaid funds on non-emergency healthcare for illegals,” Oz wrote. “If states use their own money to do it, there needs to be a clear paper trail proving that federal dollars didn’t fund those services.”
“These states failed to provide that for this $1.8 billion,” Oz added. “So today, CMS is announcing that we’re withholding nearly $300 million from California, which is by far the worst offender, until they demonstrate to our satisfaction that they’re spending that money properly.”
Oz said California alone accounted for $1.3 billion in questioned spending. “The state is giving that money back,” he said, adding that CMS plans to continue quarterly audits of state Medicaid systems.
“We will collect the rest of it,” Oz said. “Medicaid dollars belong to Americans, not illegal immigrants, and we won’t stop until we’ve held rogue states accountable and recovered their misspent funds.”
Oz also raised concerns about trends within California’s health system, citing Los Angeles County. “There has been a seven-fold increase in the number of people on hospice,” he said. “That doesn’t happen naturally.”
CMS officials said audits will continue as the administration reviews additional Medicaid expenditures nationwide.
