House Speaker Mike Johnson, who shepherded President Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” through Congress, said Sunday that the Medicaid work requirements — which could affect his home state of Louisiana — have a “moral component” to them because people on Medicaid who “refuse” to work are “defrauding the system.”
“If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system,” Johnson said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “You’re cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that’s right. So there’s a moral component to what we’re doing. And when you make young men work, it’s good for them, it’s good for their dignity, it’s good for their self-worth, and it’s good for the community that they live in.”
The GOP-controlled House passed the massive bill, which sets priorities for Mr. Trump’s agenda for upcoming budgets, by just one vote in the early hours Thursday after an all-night session. The bill is now headed to the Senate, where several Republicans have already voiced concerns, including Sens. Josh Hawley and Rand Paul.
The bill went through intense debate in two committees last week as an alliance of blue-state Republicans and fiscal hawks refused to budge. Given Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, Mr. Trump went to the Hill on Tuesday to rally the holdouts in the GOP conference.
To pay for some of Mr. Trump’s tax reforms, such as extending his 2017 tax cuts and eliminating tax on tips, there are cuts to several programs. Republicans have insisted they are not cutting Medicaid, and reductions in the low-income entitlement program have become one of the most charged parts of the bill. In a closed-door session Tuesday with members of the Republican conference, sources in the room told CBS News Mr. Trump said, “Don’t f*** around with Medicaid.”
To save money on Medicaid, the final version of the bill puts work requirements on Medicaid, which Johnson has insisted will account for the bulk of any cost-cutting. An analysis by the healthcare nonprofit KFF found that 190,000 people in Louisiana, Johnson’s home state, stand to lose Medicaid under new requirements.
Johnson insisted on Sunday that “we have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP,” the food stamp program.
“What we’re doing … is working on fraud, waste and abuse, and everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that’s a responsibility of Congress,” Johnson said.
He said there are 4.8 million…
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