House Speaker Mike Johnson was called out after he erroneously claimed that Medicaid cuts are happening due to "young men" who play video games "all day" instead of going to work.
Medicaid, the joint federal-state program that provides health coverage to low-income Americans, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities, has long been in the GOP’s crosshairs. Critics within the party argue it discourages work, particularly among younger adults.
Johnson echoed that sentiment in a recent interview, suggesting that tightening eligibility rules would prevent young men from spending their days "playing video games."
He said:
"No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who's duly owed—what we've talked about is returning work requirements, so, for example, you don't have able-bodied young men on a program that's designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled. They're draining resources from people."
"So if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money, and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day. We have a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid."
"The estimate is $51 billion a year in Medicaid is lost to fraud, which is unconscionable. We now have with the DOGE efforts and with new algorithms and with new oversight responsibilities and opportunities, we are building to carve that out. We have a responsibility to do it."
"That estimate, by some people, some estimates say that's very low. It's actually much higher than that."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Johnson was swiftly called out.
Earlier this month, Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy was widely mocked following his inconvenient slip of the tongue during a CNBC interview as he mused about finding ways to "cut" Medicare before quickly correcting himself.
The exchange occurred after host Rebecca Quick pressed Cassidy on how his party intended to fund the “trillion-dollar tax cuts” sought by President Donald Trump. When Quick pointed out that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the cuts could reduce revenue by as much as "$11.2 trillion over the next decade," Cassidy defended Trump’s stance, insisting that he "doesn’t want to touch Medicare and Medicaid."
He asked, "Is there some way that we can cut—excuse me—reform Medicare so that benefits stay the same?"—showing that the GOP knows exactly what they're doing, no matter how they might try to spin cuts to some of the nation's most vital social welfare programs.
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