House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans’ so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill does not include Medicaid cuts.
Johnson said, “No. You can underscore what I am about to tell you: there are no Medicaid cuts in the big, beautiful bill. We are not cutting Medicaid. What we are doing is reducing the program wrought with fraud, waste and abuse to make sure that that program is essential to so many people and ensure that it is available for the most vulnerable. It’s intended for young, single pregnant women, the disabled and elderly. ”
He continued, “What is happening is you have young men, able-bodied workers on Medicaid and not working when they can. That drains resources from the people who need it most. So what we are doing is an important and heroic thing to preserve the program so it doesn’t become insolvent. This will not hurt rural hospitals. There’s flexibility built into this. They keep saying 7.6 million people is the figure that will supposedly be affected by this. When you look at the numbers and break them down, this is high on public opinion. You are talking about 1.4 million illegal aliens that are receiving Medicaid right now. They are not entitled to that.”
Johnson added, “There are about 4.8 million people that they are referring to that are able-bodied workers. If you are able to work and not and riding the public wagon, you need to pull it. This is not a draconian requirement. All we’ll require in the legislation is 20 hours a week. You can volunteer in a community, be in a job training program and get to work.”
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