Speaker Johnson: There’s More than 1.4 Million Illegal Aliens on Medicaid, It’s Not Intended for Non-U.S. Citizens

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
TAPPER: “The cbo found that nearly 8 million Americans will, in fact, lose their insurance coverage because of the changes this bill makes to Medicaid. So how do you reconcile that with what President Trump said?”

Johnson: “It‘s directly in line with what the president said. I‘ve said the same. We are not cutting Medicaid in this package. There‘s a lot of misinformation out there about this, Jake. The numbers of Americans who are affected are those that are entwined in our work to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse. And what I mean, what do I mean by that? You got more than 1.4 million illegal aliens on Medicaid. Medicaid is not intended for non-U.S. citizens. It‘s intended for the most vulnerable populations of Americans, which is pregnant women and young single mothers, the disabled, the elderly. They are protected in what we‘re doing because we‘re preserving the resources for those who need it most. You‘re talking about 4.8 million able bodied workers, young men, for example, who are on Medicaid and not working. They are choosing not to work when they can. That is called fraud. They are cheating the system. When you root out those kinds of abuses, you save the resources that are so desperately needed by the people who deserve it and need it most. That‘s what we‘re doing, and that‘s why this is a the morality of what we‘re doing here is precisely right, and it comports with all the public opinion polls. When people ask whether young men, for example, who are able bodied and have no dependents should be working, everybody says yes, and that‘s what our package does. So these estimates that you‘re hearing are accurate, but it‘s dealing with those numbers of people in the population. And that‘s going to make the preserve the program and strengthen it for those who need it most.”