DAILY NEWS CLIP: January 29, 2025

Medicaid payment system restored in Connecticut after outage amid Trump funding freeze


CT Insider – Tuesday, January 28, 2025
By Jordan Nathaniel Fenster

Connecticut was unable much of the day Tuesday to obtain federal Medicaid funds to pay medical providers following a freeze instituted by President Donald Trump. At least 20 states were experiencing similar issues, amid the freeze that created confusion throughout the day for state and local officials.

“We are still unable to draw down funds from our federal Medicaid system,” said Christine Stuart, spokesperson for the state Department of Social Services said Tuesday afternoon.

By 4 p.m, the system was back up and running, with DSS gaining access to funds.

The Trump administration issued a freeze of all grants and funding Trump, requiring all “Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements,” according to a memorandum sent Monday night.

Another memo, however, sent from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, said the “temporary pause” of grants, loans and federal financial assistance programs, would not impact Medicaid payments. That memo came out Tuesday afternoon.

“Any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the pause and exempted from this review process. In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause,” the memo said.

Nonetheless, Stuart said DSS was unable to pull from U.S. Health and Human Services accounts for much of the day amid mass confusion over the freeze guidelines and how they might affect everything from Medicaid to SNAP benefits, municipal aid and more.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., addressed the outage on the social media site X, formerly Twitter.

“Connecticut’s Medicaid payment system has been turned off. Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid. Discussions ongoing about whether services can continue,” Murphy posted. “Medicaid covers health care for millions of seniors and covers 40 percent of births in America.”

Despite DSS’ inability to draw Medicaid funds, the Connecticut Hospital Association said the freeze had not impacted payments.

“This has not impacted hospitals’ ability to treat patients and while we aren’t aware of any immediate payment impacts, we are in close contact with the state. We are concerned because Medicaid is an essential source of coverage and payment for our patients and hospitals,” the organization said in a prepared statement.

Mark Masselli, president, CEO, and founder of Community Health Center, said Medicaid is “A very important part of the work that we do,” making up “more than 50 percent of our revenue that comes in.”

Connecticut lawmakers have in recent years worked toward better funding Medicaid in Connecticut, said Sen. Martin Looney, D-New Haven, the senate president pro tempore.

“We know in many cases there were already in Connecticut medical providers who were not taking Medicaid patients because the rate rates were so low, especially with children,” he said.

State Sen. Saud Anwar, D-East Hartford, said, “There is a sense that perhaps there is a protection of Medicaid and SNAP, but other federal funded programs are going to be in jeopardy.

He called Medicaid and SNAP payments “part of a critical safety net” on which Connecticut residents rely.

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