One day after President Trump announced a federal grant and aid freeze, state Medicaid programs in the United States reported that they had lost access to federal payment portals.

Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), issued a memo on Monday stating that agencies must cease “all activities relating to the obligation or disbursement of federal financial assistance to the extent permissible by applicable laws.”

The state Medicaid programs have reported that they were unable to access the portals that provide federal funding for states.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote on social platform X: “My staff confirmed reports that Medicaid Portals are down in 50 states as a result of last night’s federal fund freeze. This is an attempt to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance overnight and will get people killed.

Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaiian, both shared similar claims about states losing access. Multiple states also confirmed outages.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X Tuesday afternoon that she was “aware” of the Medicaid portal outage, but “confirmed there were no payments affected — they are being processed and sent.”

She added, “We anticipate the portal being back online in a short time.”

The outage coincides with broader concerns about how Trump’s freezing of federal aid may impact government services.

In a memo released by the OMB on Tuesday, it was stated that “Any program which provides direct benefits to Americans will be explicitly excluded from this pause process and exempted. The guidance already excludes Social Security and Medicare. Mandatory programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, which are mandatory, will continue to operate without pause.”

Leavitt, during a press conference earlier on Tuesday, insisted that Medicaid would not be impacted by the pause. However, when asked to guarantee that Medicaid recipients would not see their benefits cut, she replied, “I will check on that and get back to you.”

Medicaid.gov reports that in October 2024, there were nearly 80 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. More than 37 million children were enrolled in the two programs.

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services spokesperson said that the “Payment Management System (PMS) is experiencing some delays/system access issues, but it’s unclear if this is due to the OMB memo.” They added that other states had reported similar problems with PMS. “MassHealth has not stopped any payments made to providers, plans, or other payees.”

Melanie Cleveland, Director of Communications for the Alabama Medicaid Agency said: “It’s our understanding that the portal access has been temporarily halted, and we’re currently awaiting CMS guidance.”

Christine Stuart, the deputy director of communication for the Connecticut Department of Social Services said that “the payment management system cannot be accessed.”

A spokesperson for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) said the program “is currently locked out of the Federal Payment Management System, this means that at this time AHCCCS is unable to draw down any federal funding including funding for our non-discretionary Title XIX and Title XXI programs.”

The Alaska Department of Health says its portal is working normally.