Patriot Brief

• HHS is ending a rule that paid childcare centers before verifying attendance.

• The Biden-era policy is tied to massive alleged fraud in Minnesota.

• Payments will now be based on actual attendance, not paper enrollment.

This is one of those fixes that makes you wonder how the problem was allowed to exist in the first place.

Under a Biden-era rule, states were required to pay childcare providers upfront based on enrollment — not whether kids actually showed up. No attendance verification. No proof services were delivered. Just checks written in advance, on paper, with the hope that everyone involved was acting in good faith.

That might sound nice in a policy memo. In the real world, it was an engraved invitation to fraud.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services is finally closing that loophole, and it’s long overdue. When the federal government pays first and asks questions later, bad actors don’t hesitate to take advantage. Minnesota’s daycare scandal — where providers allegedly billed for children who weren’t there at all — is the clearest example of what happens when ideology replaces basic safeguards.

This wasn’t some obscure technical glitch. More than $19 billion flowed through the system in under two years under this rule. That’s real money, meant to support working families, getting shoveled out the door before anyone bothered to confirm the service existed.

HHS is now restoring something that shouldn’t be controversial: attendance-based billing. If kids are there, providers get paid. If they’re not, they don’t. States won’t be forced to prepay. Parents, not contracts, will matter again. In any normal business or household, that’s common sense.

But common sense took a back seat under an administration obsessed with speed, optics, and signaling compassion — even if it meant throwing accountability out the window. Paying based on “trust” alone isn’t kindness. It’s negligence, especially when taxpayer money is involved.

The Trump administration isn’t cutting childcare funding here. It’s protecting it. Closing loopholes doesn’t hurt families who rely on childcare — it protects them from a system that bleeds resources to scammers and leaves fewer dollars for legitimate providers.

If a daycare is actually caring for children, this change won’t hurt them at all. If they aren’t, the checks stop. That’s not punitive. That’s how responsible government is supposed to work.

This fix won’t solve every problem in childcare policy, but it draws a bright, overdue line: no kids, no payment. It’s a reminder that compassion without verification isn’t compassion at all — it’s an open door for abuse.

From Breitbart:

President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Monday that it is closing a Biden-era loophole that required states to pay childcare centers before verifying attendance.

The department is initiating the change as fallout from allegations of widespread fraud at Minnesota Somali-run daycare centers continues. According to HHS, the Biden administration’s rule required states to base payments to childcare centers on enrollment instead of verified attendance, and payment was provided in advance of services.

“Paying providers upfront based on paper enrollment instead of actual attendance invites abuse,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement. “In Minnesota, we’ve seen credible and widespread allegations of fraudulent daycare providers who were not caring for children at all. The reforms we are enacting will make fraud harder to perpetrate.”

The Biden administration’s rule went into effect on April 30, 2024, “meaning more than $19.3 billion in taxpayer dollars over 20 months may have been spent before President Trump could correct provisions that could have prolonged massive day care fraud in Minnesota,” the New York Post first reported.

“Between 2021 and 2024, the Administration for Children and Families shelled out more than $91.8 billion from its Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), a federal block grant program that helps fund child care in states, US territories and tribes,” the report states, citing HHS data.

HHS is rescinding the rule through its Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and will allow 30 days for public comment.

Under the rule change, attendance-based billing will be restored, states will no longer be made to provide upfront payments, and states will no longer be influenced to prioritize contracts over parent-directed vouchers, HHS said.

“Congress appropriated this funding to support working families and ensure children have safe places to grow and learn,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement. “Loopholes and fraud diverted that money to bad actors instead. Today, we are correcting that failure and returning these funds to the working families they were meant to serve.”

“When controls are not in place, bad actors can bill for children who aren’t there,” added Assistant Secretary for Family Support Alex Adams. “Families and taxpayers deserve proof that services are being delivered to children. These rule changes emphasize the critical role federal investments in child care play for the American workforce.”

The rule change comes a week after HHS suspended federal payments to childcare businesses in Minnesota amid growing evidence of mass fraud.

HHS also launched a hotline for reporting fraud on Dec. 30, 2025, and said the ACF has already received 245 reports of potential fraud so far.

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