Minnesota GOP leaders say the Walz administration delayed full access to a Medicaid review flagging more than $52 million in improper payments until weeks before Election Day.
House Speaker Lisa Demuth and fellow Republicans are pressing Gov. Tim Walz’s team over a heavily redacted third-party assessment of the state’s Medicaid program, arguing lawmakers were kept in the dark for months while an election looms.
Fox News Digital reported that the Walz administration hired contractor Optum to examine 14 high-risk services. The review identified more than $52 million in improper payments, though the document cautioned that improper payments do not necessarily equal fraud, waste, or abuse.
A public version released in February was heavily blacked out. Select lawmakers only received broader access last week. Demuth, a Republican candidate for governor, tied the timing directly to the ballot.
Demuth told the outlet fraud has grown sharply on Walz’s watch and that no one in the administration has been held to account.
"Fraud here has exploded under the Walz administration,"
She went further on the withheld details and the calendar.
"Governor Walz has held no one in his entire administration accountable for the level of fraud. It definitely brings into question what is in that report and why are they hiding it?"
With the Minnesota election 29 days away, she added that the refusal to open the full file sooner raises obvious questions.
"Our election here in Minnesota is 29 days away. We’re just four weeks out, and you really have to wonder why they are refusing to do this,"
Walz announced the audit in October 2025. The Minnesota Department of Human Services released the redacted public copy in February. Officials said the blackouts protected Optum’s trade secrets and sensitive security details that could give criminals a roadmap for more fraud.
Republican Sen. Jordan Rasmusson tried to force a full public release. His April amendment failed on a party-line vote. A version of the access provision later passed in a May budget package.
Under the law, the Department of Human Services must give the initial Optum reports to members of the legislative committee that handles human services policy and finance after a joint request from the chair and ranking minority member. Lawmakers may review the material but cannot publicly release protected nonpublic information.
DFL Rep. Mohamud Noor and then-GOP co-chair Joe Schomacker requested the report in May. Rasmusson followed with his own request in June. Fuller access for a limited group of legislators arrived only last week.
Rasmusson said Democrats have struggled to face the scale of the problem.
"I think it’s really hard for Democrats, elected Democrats in Minnesota, to admit that we have a fraud problem of this scale, and to take accountability for those failings,"
After seeing the unredacted file, he described deeper gaps in basic program integrity, eligibility checks, verifying that providers deliver real services, and analytics that should catch abuse. He said the Walz administration and legislative Democrats could have opened the material months earlier during session.
"After reviewing the unredacted Optum report, my main takeaway is that it underscores the systemic failures of the Walz administration and Minnesota Democrats to protect Minnesota from fraud,"
Sen. John Hoffman, who has reviewed the document, rejected the push for wider release. He framed the Optum work as a map of vulnerabilities, not a document for public distribution before repairs.
"This is a report about vulnerabilities in public programs. Why would we release that to the public before we fixed them? We wouldn’t publish a report about which banks don’t lock their doors, either."
Hoffman said lawmakers already passed bills this year to protect service quality, keep care continuous for people who need it, and add safeguards against fraud. In his view the report is already outdated and the weaknesses it flagged have been closed by those new laws.
Temporary Department of Human Services Commissioner John Connolly confirmed the recent release to legislators and pointed to the statute passed last session.
"We appreciate legislators' interest in receiving a copy of the unredacted initial Optum report from February 2026. In alignment with the law passed by the Legislature last session, the Minnesota Department of Human Services released the Optum reports last week."
The Walz office was contacted for comment. No response appears in the reporting. Walz ended his re-election campaign in January. He later testified before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about alleged misuse of federal funds meant for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs.
Republican Rep. Dawn Gillman welcomed the limited release but noted the practical problem. The legislature is not in position to act on the findings until it returns in January.
"I'm grateful that it's out, but it's very disappointing we couldn’t have returned to St. Paul to address it,"
Minnesota’s Senate sits at a slim 34-33 DFL edge. The House is locked in a rare 67-67 partisan tie. That split made early Republican efforts to force full disclosure harder and left the timing of access in Democratic hands for months.
Federal agents executed a search warrant in December 2025 at a Bloomington home-health firm over potential Medicaid fraud, one visible marker of the wider enforcement pressure around the program. The Optum assessment itself stayed largely sealed from most lawmakers until the final stretch before voters decide.
Rasmusson’s core complaint remains the months of delay. He said the administration could have shared more access far earlier, and legislative Democrats could have joined Republicans to obtain the information during the session instead of waiting until the campaign’s closing weeks.
Taxpayers fund Medicaid. When a state-hired review flags tens of millions in improper payments and then sits behind redactions and procedural gates until an election is four weeks out, voters are left to judge the priorities for themselves.
