Medicaid Funds Frozen Over Fraud, Five Drown in Ohio River Rescue | NY POSTcast

[00:00:00]The Trump administration is freezing more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota as part of its ongoing crackdown on waste, fraud, and abuse. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services paused more than $867 million for California and more than $200 million for Minnesota while it reviews what it's calling high-risk claims. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[00:00:21]says the money will remain on hold until both states can prove the claims that they submitted are legitimate. The federal investigation will dig into everything from questionable in-home care billing to claims involving people with unsatisfactory immigration status to services allegedly provided after patients had died. Now, Kennedy blamed the Biden administration and Democratic leaders in both states for failing to prevent fraud.

[00:00:42]>> We are not sending Medicaid and Medicare dollars out the door until we have confidence that they're being spent lawfully and appropriately.

[00:00:50]>> As you might have guessed, the lawmakers in both states aren't happy about any of this. California Governor Gavin Newsom called the move a political stunt while Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the administration is cutting more in health care funding than it has recovered through fraud prosecutions. And speaking of health issues, Secretary Kennedy also defended the way his department has handled the outbreak of that explosive diarrhea from the Cyclospora parasite.

[00:01:14]Critics have pointed to DOJ cuts.

[00:01:16]Remember DOJ? Well, they're pointing to them for creating this mess, particularly to the FoodNet program that tracks this very type of thing. Kennedy, however, said the cuts had no impact on this outbreak.

[00:01:27]>> We did cuts in the FoodNet program, but they were for redundant surveillance. We have an extensive forensics epidemiological forensics and we've identified the um the source of the outbreak.

[00:01:42]We and the companies that are involved have implemented a recall.

[00:01:47]>> [music] >> New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill is acknowledging a major voter registration failure that allowed hundreds of non-citizens to cast ballots illegally.

[00:01:56]Now, Sherrill says a software at the state's Motor Vehicle Commission incorrectly registered about 6,600 non-citizens to vote between 2023 and 2024, and that approximately 400 of them went on to cast ballots. The governor said the registrations included Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters. She insisted there's no evidence that the mistake changed the outcome of any election, but called the failure unacceptable, while pinning the blame at least partially on her predecessor.

[00:02:22]>> And it's unacceptable that no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability, or took action when it happened years ago.

[00:02:32]>> The revelation comes not long after President Trump cited New Jersey during a primetime address on election security, claiming thousands of non-citizens had been improperly registered to vote. The governor says the state has hired an independent law firm to investigate the breakdown. She also plans to replace the software that caused the error in the first place, and is working to remove ineligible voters from the rolls while notifying everyone who's affected.

[00:02:54]>> [music] >> A devastating tragedy in Ohio claimed multiple lives over the weekend, leaving two young children without their parents. The fatal incident was all part of an attempt to save a struggling swimmer.

[00:03:06]Authorities say five people drowned in the Scioto River Sunday night, including two married couples, leaving multiple children orphaned. Investigators say the group had been spending a summer evening fishing while one of the adults went into the water and began to struggle.

[00:03:19]Two other adults jumped in to help, but they also got into trouble in the rough current. Then, two more people went into the river in another rescue attempt.

[00:03:27]None of the five survived, not a single one of them. Authorities were alerted after a distraught child ran to a nearby road and told a passing motorist that his family was in the river. The two women were pulled from the water Sunday night, while the bodies of three men were recovered the following day.

[00:03:41]Investigators say the river had been flowing at more than twice its normal rate.

[00:03:46]For more on these stories and everything else you could possibly want to know, check out the New York Post in print or online. And don't forget like and subscribe to the New York Post Cast wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. I promise, you'll be glad you did.

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