Trump Administration Caught Red-Handed With False Medicaid Fraud Claims Against New York

In a stunning admission, the Trump administration has acknowledged a major error in its accusations against New York’s Medicaid program, undermining its broader campaign to root out fraud in Democratic states. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) falsely claimed that nearly three-quarters of New York’s 6.8 million Medicaid enrollees—about 5 million people—received personal care services last year. The truth? Only about 450,000 did, a tiny fraction of the original number.

This glaring miscalculation first surfaced in comments by CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who used the inflated figure to justify launching a federal fraud investigation into New York’s Medicaid program. Oz’s inflammatory claims, broadcast in a social media video and a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul, accused the state of “unheard of” levels of personal care service use and urged New York to “come clean.” The administration’s own spokesman, Chris Krepich, later admitted the agency had misread New York’s billing codes and revised its methodology.

This blunder is more than just a statistical slip-up. It exemplifies the Trump administration’s pattern of “attack first, confirm facts later,” weaponizing misinformation to justify authoritarian overreach and politically motivated crackdowns. Experts like Michael Kinnucan from the Fiscal Policy Institute condemned the error as “slapdash” and warned it calls into question the integrity of similar anti-fraud efforts nationwide.

New York officials were quick to push back. The state’s Department of Health called Oz’s claims a “targeted attempt to obscure the facts,” highlighting that New York’s higher Medicaid spending reflects policy choices to provide robust at-home care, not fraud. Governor Hochul’s office labeled the initial CMS claim “patently false” and reaffirmed its commitment to combating waste and abuse while protecting vital services.

This investigation is part of a broader Trump administration crackdown on Medicaid programs in at least five states, including California, Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Vice President JD Vance leads a newly created federal task force targeting fraud, recently freezing $243 million in Medicaid funds to Minnesota—a move that sparked a lawsuit.

Critics warn that the administration’s aggressive, politically charged approach risks turning Medicaid fraud prevention into a partisan weapon rather than a collaborative effort to improve program integrity. As Kinnucan put it, “We don’t want to have fraud be this political football.”

Dr. Oz’s claims also included other inaccuracies, such as alleging New York had loosened eligibility criteria for personal care assistance to include vague conditions like being “easily distracted.” Legal Aid Society’s Rebecca Antar clarified that New York actually tightened these rules last September, and being “easily distracted” is not a qualifying condition.

The Trump administration’s rush to smear New York’s Medicaid program with false data is a textbook example of how authoritarian tactics exploit misinformation to justify overreach and erode trust in democratic institutions. We will keep tracking these abuses and exposing the truth behind the spin.