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DOGE has abruptly imposed new “defend the spend” rules before paying out federal health-care grants It’s forcing manual reviews of thousands of routine transactions Some organizations still waiting for $$ they expected days ago Scoop with @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

washingtonpost.comDOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra reviewDOGE is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal grants, requiring officials to manually review and approve payments that were previously routine.

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They have, I'm sure, no right to do this, but it's interesting that this is more nuanced than their making arbitrary cuts themselves, which I think has been their usual MO. Another sign that they're starting to give way to public pressure?

DOGE should be required to defend stopping payments not the other way around. This continues to be insane that they can just stop federal funding and say “tell us why you need this”

This same approach has been rolled out at multiple agencies/departments. Contracts are lapsing...the snowball is starting to roll down the hill and will only become bigger and bigger as time passes. This is how they can say "no we did not freeze any funds...we are just carefully reviewing all costs

The chaotic rollout has created a backlog Organizations have been told payments are “in transit,” but officials say that isn’t true At NIH, payments aren’t going out - and aren’t expected to until next week

New: Democrats are demanding answers on DOGE’s defend-the-spend. They also say DOGE’s new requests conflict with federal law on paying out obligated funds. “We demand that you immediately reverse this illegal action,” @neal.house.gov + Rep. Danny Davis write in letter shared with WaPo.