Kennedy about his views on vaccines and abortion, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was also asked how he'd run the two largest government health insurance programs − Medicare and Medicaid.

Just one day after the White House announced the federal funding freeze, the Medicaid payment portal went down, according to Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants sparked chaos and confusion at state Medicaid agencies on Tuesday.

After President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on federal grants and loans, Medicaid's portals went down Tuesday afternoon, causing recipients to panic about their health insurance coverage. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the Medicaid outage Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, but said payments would not be impacted.

The Medicaid website was down, but the portal was expected to be back up shortly, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. She wrote on X that no payments had been affected and that they were still being processed and sent.

At least 20 states were unable to draw funds from an HHS payment system hours after the White House ordered a pause on the disbursement of grants and loans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -At least three U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday healthcare providers were blocked from the Medicaid payment portal after the Trump administration announced a federal funding pause, even as the White House said the program was exempted.

After declining to name Medicaid as a program safe from the Trump administration's woke "freeze," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the sites should be back up shortly.

Chief among congressional Republicans’ priorities is an extension of the 2017 tax law, most of which is set to expire at the end of the year. A full extension is projected to cost about $4.6 trillion over the next 10 years by renewing tax rate cuts for individuals. Any other costs listed below would be on top of that amount.

President Donald Trump's new appointee to head US Human and Health Services, Robert F. Kennedy, is likely to make some changes to Medicaid, his testimony to the Senate Finance Committee revealed Wednesday.

Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that provides health care coverage to low-income individuals and families. It services over 79 million Americans.