The Trump administration has been forced to admit it used significantly flawed data to justify a high-profile fraud investigation into New York’s Medicaid programme — a blunder that is now raising serious questions about the credibility of its broader anti-fraud campaign across the United States. The Trump administration Medicaid fraud probe, which was publicly championed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is now under scrutiny after a basic numerical error was exposed and confirmed to the Associated Press.
At the heart of the controversy is a claim Oz made last month, both in a social media video and in an official letter to New York’s Democratic governor. He stated that approximately 5 million New Yorkers received personal care services through Medicaid in the past year — a figure that would represent nearly three-quarters of the state’s 6.8 million total Medicaid enrolees. Oz called the supposed utilisation rate “unheard of” and demanded the state “come clean” about its programme.
The problem? The actual number was dramatically lower. According to CMS spokesman Chris Krepich, who confirmed the error to the AP, the real figure sits at around 450,000 people — roughly 6% to 7% of total enrolees. That’s not three-quarters of the programme. That’s a fraction of it. Krepich said the agency had “misidentified New York’s approach to applying billing codes” and has since revised its methodology.
Michael Kinnucan, senior health policy adviser at the Fiscal Policy Institute, whose analysis first brought the error into public view, didn’t mince his words. “These numbers could have been cleared up in a phone call, so it’s really slapdash,” he said. His assessment reflects a broader frustration that the administration appears to be launching politically charged investigations before verifying the underlying facts.
Trump Administration’s Medicaid Fraud Campaign Faces Credibility Crisis
The Trump administration Medicaid fraud push extends well beyond New York. The administration has launched similar investigations into at least four other states, including California, Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a sweeping anti-fraud task force across federal benefit programmes, to be led by Vice President JD Vance. As part of that initiative, Vance announced a temporary halt of $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota — a move the state has since challenged in court.
Kinnucan warned that the administration’s combative approach risks turning a legitimate policy conversation into a political weapon. “We don’t want fraud to be this political football,” he said, arguing that meaningful reform requires collaboration between all stakeholders, not public shaming built on faulty data.
New York officials were swift and sharp in their response. A spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hochul said plainly: “The initial claim by CMS was patently false, and we are glad they now admit it.” The New York Department of Health called Oz’s mischaracterisations “a targeted attempt to obscure the facts,” while reaffirming the state’s commitment to delivering quality Medicaid services.
The data error wasn’t the only questionable claim Oz made. In the same video, he suggested New York had made its eligibility screening for personal care services “more lenient,” citing criteria like being “easily distracted” as a qualifying condition. Rebecca Antar, director of the health law unit at the Legal Aid Society, said the opposite was true — that a rule change effective last September actually tightened the state’s eligibility requirements, and that the phrase “easily distracted” doesn’t appear anywhere in the updated standards.
Oz also characterised personal care services as tasks “our families would normally do for us, like carrying groceries.” That framing drew a sharp rebuttal from Kathleen Downes, a 33-year-old Nassau County resident with quadriplegic cerebral palsy, who depends on personal care assistance for basic daily functions including showering, eating, and using the toilet. Downes said her mother provided this care unpaid for years — at significant personal and professional cost — before she was able to access Medicaid-funded support. “He’s assuming that everybody wants to and can just do it for free forever,” Downes said. “And that’s not feasible for a lot of people.”
For many observers, the episode crystallises a pattern that has become a defining feature of the Trump administration’s second term — acting aggressively and publicly before the facts are confirmed. CMS says the investigation into New York is still ongoing and that concerns remain about the state’s overall Medicaid spending levels, which are higher per beneficiary than the national average. But with a foundational statistic now publicly discredited, the administration faces an uphill battle in convincing critics — and the public — that this crackdown is driven by evidence rather than politics.