DOGE goes after Medicare and Medicaid as Elon Musk calls it source of 'big money fraud'
- Elon Musk's group is working on cutting government spending
Elon Musk has set his sights on the powerful government agency that controls Medicare and Medicaid payments, going through financial systems to see where funds are being spent.
Musk's team at the Department of Government Efficiency has been on-site at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) where they received access to key payment and contracting systems, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The DOGE team have accessed similar systems at the Treasury Department and have a meeting at the Labor Department on Wednesday afternoon as part of their mandate to cut federal spending and the size of the government. USAID saw all its staff put on leave.
Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, confirmed the news, writing on X: 'Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening.'
He and his team, at the request of President Donald Trump, have been on a quest to upend the government.
Elon Musk and his team are now targeting the agency that handles Medicaid and Medicare payments as part of their quest to cut government spending
CMS, a part of the Department of Health and Human Service, is a major distributor of healthcare payments.
The center sent out about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2024.
With around 6,710 employees, it oversees Medicare, the health coverage program for older and disabled Americans, and Medicaid, for lower-income people.
Musk's team has not yet gotten access to the database that includes enrollees personal data and the DOGE access is 'read-only,' meaning it cannot make changes to the system.
But payments coming from CMS are complicated and vary.
Many Medicare payments go through private insurers, which are paid by the federal government. Medicaid is jointly overseen by federal and state officials, and federal payments go directly to the states.
The federal government has enforcement efforts around healthcare fraud at the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and at CMS itself.
Elon Musk confirmed his group is targeting the agency
Demonstrators rally during a protest against Elon Musk outside the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Washington
Musk's group has been causing controversy with many Democrats protesting the cuts to government and the layoff of federal workers.
Unions have started filing lawsuits.
Democrats have questioned if Musk has any oversight but Trump said the billionaire owner of X is only acting with his approval. He added that his administration is keeping the SpaceX founder, who has billions in federal contracts, from interfering in any area where there is a conflict of interest.
'Elon will not do anything without our approval and we will give him the approval where appropriate,' he said in the Oval Office on Monday.
'If there is a conflict, we won't let him get near it. He has a team of talented people. We are trying to shrink government. Where we think there is a conflict or a problem, we won't let him go near it,' he added.
'Elon will not do anything without our approval,' President Donald Trump said of Musk
The president noted that Musk 'has access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good - if we agree with him. He is talented from the standpoint of management and cost and we put him in charge of seeing what he could do with certain groups and certain numbers.'
Musk is serving as a a 'special government employee,' the White House said.
He has a government email address and office space in the White House complex.
Musk is not receiving a paycheck so wouldn't have to file the standard government disclosure forms.
And Trump did deny Musk's request to allow Baris Akis, a Turkish-born venture capitalist with a green card, to work for DOGE, The Atlantic reported. U.S. law generally prohibits noncitizens from working for the federal government.
But Trump has otherwise given Musk wide latitude when it comes to cutting back on government spending and the federal workforce.
DOGE is not a government department but a small team in Trump's administration. It works out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House.
