New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) accused the Trump administration of "holding all the nation's hospitals and vital services hostage" as Medicaid portals across the country went down after the president's push to kill Congress-approved grants through an executive order.
The lawmaker said in a publication on X that Donald Trump intends to "seize power from Congress and hand it over to billionaires." "We must state the truth: this is a constitutional crisis. It's a massive, illegal power grab that the House and Senate have a sworn duty to stop," she added.
Trump is holding all the nation’s hospitals and vital services hostage to seize power from Congress and hand it over to billionaires.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 28, 2025
We must state the truth: this is a constitutional crisis. It’s a massive, illegal power grab that the House and Senate have a sworn duty to stop.
The claims come as Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said Medicaid reimbursement portals were down in all 50 states following Trump's order, which sparked political and legal backlash from his detractors. "This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed," Wyden said in a publication of his own.
Medicaid's Payment Management Services warns that due to "Executive Orders regarding potentially unallowable grant payments, PMS is taking additional measures to process payments. Reviews of applicable programs and payments will result in delays and/or rejections of payments."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that authorities are aware of the "Medicaid website portal outage" and "confirmed no payments have been affected." "We expect the portal will be back online shortly," she added. She added that the measure "does not affect individual assistance that's going to Americans" and insisted the pause is "temporary."
The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 28, 2025
We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent.
We expect the portal will be back online shortly.
However, Democrats are moving forward with challenges to the wide-ranging executive order, which imposes a freeze on all federal grants and loans to outside bodies.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said that she and Democratic colleagues across the country will sue to stop the order's enforcement. "Not only does this administration's new policy put people at risk, but it is plainly unconstitutional. The president does not get to decide which laws to enforce and for whom. when congress dedicates funding for a program, the president cannot pull that funding on a whim," she said in a televised statement.
"Later today I'm leading and joining with my colleagues, my fellow Democratic attorney generals and suing this administrations to stop this illegal freeze on essential funds for our state. We will not stand for any illegal policy that puts essential services for millions of Americans at risk. and we'll work tirelessly overnight to ensure that does not happen. Our lawsuit will seek a court order to immediately stop the enforcement of the OMB policy and preserve essential funding for Americans," she added.
The Office of Management and Budget ordered all federal agencies to suspend payments, saying the use of "Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."
Trump's memo clarified that Social Security, Medicare and "payments to individuals" are not affected, but everything else could be subjected to revision, according to POLITICO. This includes grants and loans to research bodies, universities, charities, among other institutions.
Even though Democrats could challenge the legality of the decision, the Washington Post pointed out that Trump could take another approach: Pausing spending and subject it to review. The outlet recalls that Trump believes any laws that restrict the president's power to withhold congressional spending are "unconstitutional" and wants to repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which does exactly that.
Originally published on Latin Times
