House Republicans Prepare To Gut Medicaid As Trump Destroys The Economy

Republicans in the House of Representatives are poised to gut Medicaid as part of their plan to fund their tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This comes as Donald Trump is destroying the economy, which would actually force more people to adopt the low-income health insurance plans offered by the government. On top of that, Republican voters are the ones who stand to lose the most if this plan passes, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

It's no secret that this Trump administration, uh, is not only tanking the economy, but inside the administration itself, it's nothing but chaos and turmoil with scandals and lies and idiots out there contradicting one another on tv. It's total pandemonium, but that's not the only game in town. We also have to remember that while we're being distracted by all the horrible things Trump is doing, and maybe distracted is not the right word, but we also have a Republican controlled house of representatives right now that is still working out their plan to destroy Medicaid as we know it. Medicaid, of course, is the low income government subsidized health insurance program that covers one in five Americans. 20% of the country relies on Medicaid. Most of them, by the way, in conservative districts and Republicans in the house are trying to gut the program so that they can give a tax break to the wealthy elite, which includes themselves in most instances.

20% of Americans right now have their health insurance coverage on the chopping block. And it's because as Mike Johnson says, allegedly, we gotta root out the the waste and the fraud and the abuse because God waste, fraud abuse is all we hear from this administration. Yet they haven't been able to actually show us any, we just have to take their word for it. As Johnson recently pointed out in an appearance on Fox News quote, we have to root out fraud, waste, and abuse. When you have people on the program that are draining the resources, it takes it away from the people that are actually needing it the most and are intended to receive it. You're talking about young single mothers down on their fortunes at a moment, the people with real disabilities, the elderly, and we've gotta protect and preserve that program. So we're going to preserve the integrity of it.

Meanwhile, what Johnson left out is the fact that Republicans are currently working on a plan to strip the Medicaid subsidies from the Affordable Care Act, which is something they've been trying to do since the year 2010 when it passed. But by doing so, it would kick millions of people off of the program. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the Affordable Care Act kind of raised the thresholds, not only for who could qualify for Medicaid, but also the amount that the federal government would be paying to the states to cover these additional people. So it was a win-win, but Republicans are trying to kill it, kill again so that they can give a tax cut to their wealthy donors and to themselves, and people will go without health insurance.

And I'm sure everybody else also realizes the irony of this, given the fact that Trump is tanking the economy, more and more people are lo losing their jobs. Their dollars are buying less. So more and more people would qualify for Medicaid, but because of these Republican cuts and the work requirements they wanna put on it, you're gonna have able-bodied people who of course do not have jobs now that are not eligible for Medicaid because you're not working. And the other part of that equation is the fact that firms across the country have stopped hiring. So yes, we have some people losing their jobs, but that doesn't mean these companies are rushing to fill 'em. So these people will be cut out of the Medicaid program after being fired by the Trump administration's policies. And then Republican policies will prevent them from being able to have healthcare coverage. And yes, people will die from those decisions, but hey, that doesn't matter to Republicans, right? As long as they can give their tax cuts out, that is the only thing they care about.