Democrats worry the Trump administration plans deep cuts to Medicaid. If confirmed, here's what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to do.

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.

So far, experts say it's uncertain how Medicaid funding could be disrupted by the funding freeze. Medicaid serves low-income Americans who often do not qualify for health insurance via their work. More than 74 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid in the fall of 2024 and could be impacted by the funding freeze.

The new Department of Government Efficiency can't go after Medicare or Social Security. That leaves Medicaid in a vulnerable position.

Kennedy Jr.'s statements before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday revealed a concerning lack of knowledge about the major health programs he'd oversee, should he be confirmed as HHS secretary.

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.

As the White House paused federal grants and loans in a far-reaching executive order, early childhood education centers and states discovered Tuesday they could no longer access money they rely on to provide care for some of the nation’s neediest families and children.

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.

Trump’s pick for health secretary showed a poor understanding of a key part of the job.

The outage at least temporarily jeopardized payments the federal government makes to state programs, and sowed uncertainty for patients, doctors, hospitals and others.

While Democrats blasted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for previous comments on vaccines and some Republicans teed him up for stump speeches, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana mostly stuck