Two things matter about this outrage. First, the federal government has unlimited power to create dollars, so there is no reason to withhold money that helps keep children healthy and alive.
The second thing comes in the red paragraph in the article.
Gov. Greg Abbott defends Medicaid funding for Texas
By Terri Langford, The Texas Tribune, September 2, 2026
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is doubling down on the state’s fight to recover nearly $10 billion in Medicaid funding that the Trump administration is withholding from Texas hospitals.
“Texas is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to protect funding that helps hospitals serve Medicaid patients and keeps critical emergency care available,” Abbott’s spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement.
The statement comes two days after The Texas Tribune reported that the governor’s office had stepped into a nearly year-long impasse between the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and Washington over the funding. The money helps hospitals close the gap between Medicaid reimbursements and the actual costs they incur to treat low-income Texans.
The money was to go to Texas hospitals beginning Tuesday, the start of the state fiscal year. Each day it is delayed, it costs Texas hospitals about $27 million, according to the Texas Hospital Association.
Texas hospitals pay about $4.2 billion annually to local taxing districts and the federal government matches that amount for the supplemental Medicaid funding.
Beginning last December, the federal government began questioning Texas HHSC, which administers Medicaid for the state, about how those taxes are generated and calculated, indicating the feds would withhold the money until those questions were answered to their satisfaction. But state health officials have insisted there’s nothing wrong with the way this money is collected and nothing has changed in its calculations.
“Texas’ financing fully complies with federal law, and Texas health care providers should receive the funding they are due,” Mahaleris, Abbott’s spokesman said on Wednesday.
Abbott’s statement and his letter to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month in which the Republican governor characterized the $10 million hold as an economic “gun to the head” is not only a rare public disagreement with the administration, but also one of the strongest public stances his office has made in support of Medicaid funding for Texas.
Texas, under Abbott’s watch, is one of the few states that has not expanded Medicaid to more low-income Texans. This has contributed to Texas having the highest uninsured rate in the nation.
Now, MAGA Governor Abbott suddenly cares about low-income Texans?? He didn’t care when he forced these low-income people to do without healthcare, even though the federal government (under the Democrats) offered to pay.
Why did Abbot do something so stupid? Because Trump told him to, and Abbott is very obedient.
Suddenly, Abbott realizes that the Texas government has to pay, so he panics. Now he wants the federal government to do what it offered to do many months ago — what it is doing for all but the most MAGA-dumb states.
A reminder to Texans who vote Republican, no matter what. You get what you vote for.
Last year, Texas’ health agency had to fight back a measles outbreak as the state endured a claw back of $700 million in unspent COVID funding last year, plus millions more cut in public health funding.
Oh, you don’t believe in vaccination because a Trump dummy told you not to vaccinate. You do realize that Trump is completely vaccinated, don’t you?
Publicly, lawmakers praised the fact that the Trump administration was replacing hundreds of millions in healthcare cuts with a fraction of the loss through smaller grant programs.
Of course he did. Those are the lawmakers who would praise Trump even if he “shot someone on 5th Avenue.” I don’t want to demonstrate Schadenfreude here, because there are innocent children involved, and they can’t control what their damn-fool parents have done.
But if there were no kids involved, I would laugh and shout, “It serves you right, you bigoted fools, for backing America’s #1 bigoted fool. Now, your hatred and bigotry is coming back to bite you. You voted your hatred and now you reap the whirlwind.
But my heart goes out to the kids who have you as parents.
The federal government’s scrutiny comes after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed last year that cut $900 million from Medicaid.
The federal government could have created the needed money, simply by pressing a few computer keys. It had no reason to cut spending, especially while giving tax cuts to the rich.
Statement from the St. Louis Federal Reserve: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.” (i.e., doesn’t borrow dollars and is not in debt.)
Alan Greenspan, Former Federal Reserve Chairman: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.
The brunt of those cuts affected those states that expanded Medicaid, but a provision in the legislation effectively froze Texas’ taxing structure for hospitals, prompting the cutoff on the supplemental funding.
Late Tuesday, a CMS spokesman informed the Tribune that it is committed to ensuring that Medicaid funds are used appropriately but offered no other details about the dispute.
“The agency is working with all states to ensure compliance with both longstanding and recent statutory requirements and remains engaged with the state on these issues,” the agency said in a statement. “CMS will continue to monitor the implementation of these changes and their potential impact on access to care for Medicaid beneficiaries.”
The shortfall is the result of a decision by the Trump administration to withhold approval from Texas for about $9.8 billion in the next year from three programs, the bulk of which affects the Comprehensive Hospital Increase Reimbursement Program (CHIRP).
This program gives hospitals additional funding to cover the difference between Medicaid rate payments and the actual costs that hospitals incur to provide services to Medicaid patients. Essentially, hospitals, which often are paid less than what they spend on Medicaid patients due to outdated payment rates set by the state, are losing out on their additional reimbursement for 2027.
Local governmental entities collect taxes from hospitals — about $4 billion a year, according to the Texas Hospital Association — and under the Reimbursement Program, the federal government matches those funds so that Texas hospitals can then use them to cover the actual costs of providing Medicaid services. Hospitals say those Reimbursement Program dollars are critical and if they lose that funding, they will likely have to cut services to patients.
Keep voting Republican, Texas. Trump thanks you for buying his lies, and as for your poor kids, well you really don’t care about them, do you?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 