Musk's DOGE Gains Access to Medicare System

Elon Musk's access to the operations of the federal government appears to be only accelerating. On the heels of his Department of Government Efficiency gaining access—though it may be only "read-only" access—to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system:

• Medicare/Medicaid: Representatives from DOGE have gotten access to the payment and contracting systems for the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, reports the Wall Street Journal. The reps are looking to identify fraud and waste at CMS—the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—and study the agency's structure and staffing.
• Musk: "Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening," Musk tweeted in response to another's post about the development.

• CDC: DOGE reps also visited the Centers for Disease Control and requested a list of employees who have been there less than a year or are within a two-year probationary period, reports the Washington Post.
• Labor: The reps also visited the Labor Department to discuss access to sensitive data there, per the Post. Labor unions are seeking a restraining order to keep DOGE's hands off department info, saying the non-government department's work is "illegal" and has "already been catastrophic." (Musk has successfully gutted the US Agency for International Development.)
• VA: Democratic senators are worried about what might happen at the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Musk and his associates already have the personal financial information of every veteran receiving disability or education benefits because of their illegal data mining at the Department of Treasury," tweeted Sen. Patty Murray. "Will they now look at private health records of veterans?" Sen. Richard Blumenthal raised a similar alarm, calling it "reprehensible an unelected billionaire can freely access veterans' sensitive and personal information."