CMS Launches Monthly Reporting System for Medicaid Eligibility

CMS Launches Monthly Reporting System for Medicaid Eligibility
  • calendar_today August 13, 2025
  • News

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A new nationwide reporting system will audit Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment in every state to root out illegal immigrants, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced on Tuesday.

CMS is set to automatically generate monthly reports to each state’s Medicaid and CHIP program, alerting them to any enrollees for whom immigration or citizenship status cannot be verified with federal databases, CMS officials said. The department confirmed the system will review multiple databases, including the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program.

“The first reports will be sent this week,” the agency said in a statement. “CMS will send reports to all states, every month, for the duration of each month, and then each state will have to perform its case reviews of these records.”

Reports will then be sent to CMS on each case, with details about the decisions.

“The goal of this action is to ensure that taxpayer dollars go to those who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, and to encourage the states to take steps to make sure that they do not pay benefits to individuals who are not eligible under the law,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.

“This is a critical step in protecting Medicaid and CHIP, programs that provide essential health coverage to millions of American families, from fraud and abuse,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of CMS, added in a statement. “Every dollar misspent is a dollar taken away from an eligible, vulnerable individual in need of Medicaid and CHIP. This action demonstrates our unwavering commitment to program integrity and to ensuring that these programs are reserved for those who are eligible under the law.”

CMS under Trump’s second term has begun to take a series of steps to reduce the ability for non-citizens to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. In February, Trump signed an executive order pushing agencies to take steps to reduce benefits available to non-citizens in a renewed focus on the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which banned illegal immigrants from receiving most federal benefits.

In March, HHS created an expansive definition for what types of programs would be defined as public benefits under the Act, expanding from 31 programs to 44. Public benefits programs in that category will be subject to eligibility reviews, verification, and increased scrutiny going forward.

CMS’s latest effort is just the latest in a long-running GOP campaign to reduce illegal immigration through the use of public programs. As soon as the Trump administration began sharing immigration information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement late last year, a federal judge in California ordered the agency to stop, ruling that the administration had overstepped its authority and was putting Medicaid beneficiaries at risk of deportation.

Democrats also took states to court in April to ensure the administration couldn’t begin the next phase of the new regulations from the Republican-supported spending bill. The legislation passed last month also requires states to verify eligibility twice per year for Medicaid, up from the previous annual requirement.

The group of more than 20 attorneys general is led by New York’s Letitia James, who said the verification requirements meant federal programs “must now become fear-inducing and replete with racist and xenophobic red tape. By mandating strict verification, the Federal Government is threatening the public’s ability to access health care, food, education, and more.”

“We will not let the federal government bully states into turning our health care system into an immigration enforcement program, and we will use every tool at our disposal to stop these unlawful actions and protect New Yorkers and all Americans from this administration’s lawlessness,” James said.