The Trump administration is walking back a directive to pause trillions of dollars in government spending that bred uncertainty about the impact on everything from Medicaid to special education, employment and housing assistance for people with disabilities.

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum Wednesday rescinding an order issued earlier in the week to halt federal grant, loan and other financial assistance programs with limited exception.

The original directive was set to take effect Tuesday evening, but was temporarily delayed by a federal judge before the White House decided to pull it altogether. The broad language in the order had set off widespread confusion as federal officials, state governments, nonprofits, disability advocates and others struggled to grasp exactly what the implications of the directive might have been.

The stakes are especially high for people with developmental disabilities who often rely on a myriad of federal programs to access housing, employment supports, health care, education, home and community-based services and much more, advocates say.

“Given the vast amount of uncertainty and contradictory information surrounding the policy, it is very difficult to say what programs or grants it will and won’t affect,” Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said earlier this week.

Even the White House struggled to establish which programs were included. The original memo specifically exempted Medicare and Social Security, but did not comment on Medicaid. By midday Tuesday, even before the order was set to take effect, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said all of the online portals state governments use to access federal Medicaid payments were down.

That same day White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to say at a press briefing whether Medicaid was affected by the funding freeze, but she later posted on X that “no payments have been affected” and that the payment portals would soon be back online.

After the White House rescinded the memo Wednesday, Leavitt said on X that “this is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.

“The President’s (executive orders) on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,” Leavitt said.

The White House had presented the spending freeze as a pause to ensure that programs were in compliance with several executive orders Trump recently signed including one requiring the government to recognize only two genders — male and female — and another eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, efforts in federal government. Leavitt appeared to be referring to those executive orders in her posting, but critics said the comments merely sowed further confusion.

The American Association of People with Disabilities, or AAPD, said that even after the original memo was rescinded they “continued to hear from people with disabilities, disability programs, and others facing substantial, disruptive problems with accessing funds from government grants, loans, and programs.”

In addition to Medicaid, the Trump administration said that Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants would not be affected by the funding freeze, but discretionary grants from the Department of Education could be.

AAPD said that the funding pause could also have affected protection and advocacy agencies, developmental disabilities councils, centers for independent living, parent training and information centers, university centers on developmental disabilities and numerous state and national disability organizations that rely on federal grants.

The Autism Society of America, for example, said it has federal grants for programs focused on drowning prevention, first responder training and accessible health care that could have been affected.

“Americans have already paid for these services with our tax dollars, and Congress has already allocated the funding for these programs and services,” notes a resource put out by AAPD.

Though the original memo was rescinded, disability advocates remain uneasy.

“Any actions that disrupt the ability of states to access federal funding, even as a result of confusion or misunderstanding, has direct consequences on the ability of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to access services,” said Lydia Dawson, vice president for government relations at the American Network of Community Options and Resources, or ANCOR, which represents disability service providers nationally. “While we understand that the memo has since been rescinded, we are concerned that there could be other similar harmful policies pursued in the future. That is why we urge the administration to always be clear in its direction that actions pursuant to any executive order should not impact access to funding or services intended to support people with disabilities to remain in their homes and communities.”