White House says it is working to restore Medicaid portals after Democrats report outages

The White House said Tuesday it was aware of problems with a portal that administers the Medicaid program and pledged to get it back online.

Administration officials said they expected the portals to be restored after numerous Democrats accused the White House of sabotaging the program as part of a broad, temporary freeze of government funding.

“The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage. We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X. “We expect the portal will be back online shortly.”

While the source of the outage wasn’t clear, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and other Democrats suspected ties to a decision by the Office of Management and Budget to freeze certain funding so that agencies could ensure that spending comported with President Trump’s priorities.

The White House was initially unable to say whether Medicaid might be affected, though a supplemental OMB memo circulated Tuesday said the program was exempt from the pause.

“Mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause,” the memo said.

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Sen. Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Democrat, called on Mr. Trump to “undo this chaos immediately,” while Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said the disruption would have wide-ranging effects.

“Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid. Discussions [are] ongoing about whether services can continue,” Mr. Murphy said.

Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, Florida Democrat, said he confirmed problems in his state, which enrolls 3.8 million people in Medicaid.

Medicaid provides insurance to about 80 million poor and disabled Americans nationwide. States run the program with support from the federal government, which offers matching funds through a set formula.

Rep. Richard Neal, Massachusetts Democrat, said he heard from community health centers across his state that were unable to access their Payment Management System at HHS.

“This is how they get paid by the federal government,” he wrote on X.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, also said multiple states were locked out of the program.

The shutdown coincided with an uproar over the OMB memo, sparking confusion.

The White House insisted the temporary pause, designed to ensure that federal programs match Mr. Trump’s priorities, would not impact Social Security, Medicare and programs in which funds flow to individuals.

Asked directly whether anyone on Medicaid would be cut off, however, White House press secretary Ms. Leavitt was unable to answer at first.

“I’ll check back on that and get back to you,” she said at her first-ever press briefing.

She clarified the situation around the Medicaid portals in an X post after the briefing.