1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I’m writing to urge you to pressure Dr. Mehmet Oz to immediately restore the $1.1 billion in Medicaid funding to California's In-Home Supportive Services program. Dr. Death and the Trump administration has frozen these funds without providing a single piece of evidence of fraud to state officials — that's not accountability, it's a political shakedown targeting 900,000 older Californians and people with disabilities. California's Medicaid director has already explained the program's growth: a 17.5% increase in caseload between 2023 and 2025, a modest wage increase for home health workers from $19 to $21 an hour, and more hours logged as workers serve people with greater needs. That's not fraud — that's a program doing its job. And it's doing it cheaply: in-home care costs roughly $30,000 per person annually versus $120,000 to $150,000 for skilled nursing facilities. Defunding IHSS doesn't save money; it shifts costs onto the most expensive care settings. The people caught in the middle of this freeze are not abstractions or meaningless statistics. They are seniors and people with disabilities who depend on daily support to stay in their homes. I urge you to work to release the funds now and let California's documented oversight mechanisms — annual assessments, electronic timesheets, and coordinated state-county reviews — do their work. Lives are at stake. Thank you.