Elon Musk begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/17/doge-trump-grants-hhs-nih-backlog/

DOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review
DOGE is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal grants, requiring officials to manually review and approve payments that were previously routine.
April 17, 2025 at 7:25 p.m. EDT
By Dan Diamond, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Hannah Natanson

The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal health-care grants, requiring government officials to manually review and approve previously routine payments — and paralyzing grant awards to tens of thousands of organizations, according to 12 people familiar with the new arrangements.

The effort, which DOGE has dubbed “Defend the Spend,” has left thousands of payments backed up, including funding for doctors’ and nurses’ salaries at federal health centers for the poor. Some grantees are waiting on payments they expected last week.

DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, said the new initiative, which is being rolled out across parts of the Department of Health and Human Services, will force grantees and officials to justify spending and create transparency.

The process has been abruptly instituted at the National Institutes for Health, the Administration for Children and Families, and other parts of HHS, with inconsistent instructions on how to proceed, said the people familiar with the arrangements, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. They also described immediate backlogs in processing payments.

...

[Deuxcents]

1. WTH is this?! Who is DOGE to come between people and their insurance business? This has gone too far

Congress needs to get back to work and take care of this out of control DOGE

[yellow dahlia]

4. I second those emotions!

[Ms. Toad]

10. This has nothing to do with insurance.

These are health care grants to entities requiring an additional layer of approval, not payments by insurance (or medicare) on behalf of individuals.

That said - I agree that DOGE needs to be driven out of Dodge.

[orangecrush]

2. Karma is coming.

[Deuxcents]

6. I'm counting on it but it's taking too long

[SSJVegeta]

3. Elon Musk is congress? Thats crazy. He looks like hes only one insecure billionaire

[tulipsandroses]

5. What a disgusting piece of shit. I worked at FQHC for a year. Nobody there is making a lot of money.

When I got the job in 2019, my start date was delayed because they were waiting on the grant money to pay an extra provider. You have got to be the scum of the earth to deny funds to community clinics that are already struggling to keep staff and provide care for impoverished folks.
It's even more obnoxious that this is the world's richest man denying care to the most impoverished people.
Not to mention the upheaval in people's lives. I relocated to FL for that job. If the center was expecting the money and already hired a provider, nurse, etc - often they are relocating like I did - which means they've already sold their home like I did, bought a new home or rented a new home in the new state, uprooted children if they have kids. These people disgust me.

[NoRethugFriends]

7. Garbage WP headline. Should say grants, not payments

I understand poster was just copying the headline in the WP.

[flamingdem]

8. Doge / Musk picks on people

who don't have money to hire expensive lawyers.

[LS0999]

9. After all of this is over every single person involved with DOGE to be arrested and charged

I suspect that the Turd will pardon them all if it gets to the point where he it's facing impeachment. They might be able to get them on state charges.

[xuplate]

11. Heavy Lifting

These slash and burn tactics involve huge amounts of time and effort. You have to possess a
very malicious kind of evil to participate in them.

[Meowmee]

12. More crimes committed by Doge etc. no surprise

[Old Crank]

13. Totalitarianism at its finest.

They haven't said what is wrong. Just fuck over people because they can.