Trump Officials Announce Minnesota Medicaid Fraud Arrests, Clash With State
Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, held a press conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota announcing the arrests of four Medicaid providers for alleged fraudulent billing, a day after raids on childcare and autism therapy centers. One defendant, Jama Mohamod of American Home Health Care, is accused of billing Minnesota's Integrated Community Supports disability program for unprovided services and evicting clients from apartments he was paid to maintain. The event, days before Minnesota's Nov. 3 elections, also featured Oz citing the state's mass provider disenrollment as evidence of fraud, a characterization Minnesota's Department of Human Services has formally disputed, noting many disenrollments stemmed from administrative revalidation issues rather than fraud findings. CMS has also deferred roughly $153 million in Medicaid claims amid broader federal threats to cut $2 billion annually from the state's Medicaid funding over program integrity disputes.