Vice President 
J.D. Vance on Wednesday threatened to "turn off" federal Medicare and Medicaid funding to states that decline to cooperate with a White House anti-fraud initiative, announcing the effort alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz. The administration is focusing the rollout on Democratic-run states, the PBS NewsHour reported, and is pursuing a nationwide six-month freeze on some new Medicare enrollments as part of the package. Medicare has already paused new signups for hospice and home healthcare agencies pending fraud reviews, the Guardian reported.
In the PBS NewsHour account, the package includes a halt on new Medicare provider enrollments in several categories and a parallel effort directing states to share data and audit records with federal investigators. Vance framed cooperation as a precondition for continued federal disbursement, language the Guardian quoted directly from the press appearance with Oz.
State officials in several Democratic-led states have signalled they will not accept the data-sharing terms as drafted, a point captured in the Guardian's coverage of the announcement. The administration's rollout follows months of internal targeting of what officials describe as improper payments in the two programs, framed within the 
Donald Trump administration's broader push to consolidate fraud-investigation authority at the federal level.
The freeze on new Medicare enrollments covers hospice agencies, home healthcare providers and several other categories where federal auditors have flagged elevated improper-payment rates, the PBS NewsHour reported. State health departments will be required to certify participation in the federal data exchange to maintain current draw-down rates, with the threat of withheld matching funds attached to non-compliance. Healthcare-policy analysts cited in coverage of the announcement said the framing leaves open how quickly disbursements could be paused and whether existing legal protections for state Medicaid programs would force a court fight before any cutoff takes effect.
Figures referenced: J.D. Vance, Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
