Michigan officials were scrambling to assess the potential impact of the federal grant freeze, which the White House is defending as an effort to be ‘good stewards of taxpayer dollars.'

Just as a sudden federal funding freeze from the Trump administration was set to go into effect Tuesday evening, a federal judge temporarily blocked the move that would cut off funding to an array of programs and grants around the country.

Even before President Trump's order freezing the distribution of trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans was scheduled to take effect on Tuesday afternoon—and well before it was blocked with minutes to spare by a federal judge—the edict was causing chaos.

The Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants sparked chaos and confusion at state Medicaid agencies on Tuesday.

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

Government officials from across the US said states were locked out of the Medicaid payments system after President Donald Trump’s administration ordered a freeze to federal funds.