During a press briefing on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) accused Republicans of using claims of 'waste, fraud, and abuse' to justify cuts to Medicaid and other programs in their budget.
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00:00The speaker has indicated that the GAO believes there's about $50 billion in fraud and abuse in Medicaid.
00:07What number, if you're looking at fraud and abuse, do Democrats think it's okay to cut?
00:14First of all, there's nothing close to $880 billion.
00:17They argue that over the 10-year window, that would not go out of the $550-some-odd billion.
00:20Yeah, they're lying to the American people, but let me defer to Frank Pallone.
00:24We did a report in the Energy and Commerce Committee that was based on these red tape requirements in Georgia and Arkansas,
00:36two states that experimented with it.
00:38And what we found was that overwhelmingly hundreds of thousands of people,
00:43I think it was 80%, 90% of the people that would normally be eligible for Medicaid,
00:48lost their benefits because of the red tape requirements.
00:52And no one, or practically no one, got a job, right, because the people who were already employed,
00:58who were able to be employed.
01:00So this is not a question of numbers, right?
01:04I mean, they can make up whatever numbers they want and say, you know,
01:07it's going to be $50 billion or $100 billion.
01:13Well, I understand that.
01:14But what I'm trying to say is what my fear is, and I think maybe that's what you're getting at,
01:19is that they're just going to, you know, do these red tape requirements and say,
01:23oh, that'll hit up to $880 billion.
01:27It won't.
01:28It wouldn't be anywhere near there.
01:30But I think that what's happening now is they're in total disarray.
01:34They don't know what to do.
01:35They know they can't reach these numbers, and so they're probably going to say,
01:39oh, we'll have all this red tape, and somehow that's going to reach the number.
01:44But it's not.
01:45And the only thing that it's going to do is to make sure that most people who are eligible for Medicaid
01:50don't get it and lose their health insurance.
01:53That's right.
01:54Brendan?
01:55Yeah.
01:55Chad, just if I might, because this came up in our 12-hour budget committee markup.
02:00And after this, my staff will provide you with the details.
02:05GAO later did a revision of that GAO report, the initial report,
02:11and they revised that number significantly downward.
02:14They also said that this should not be – it's a little bit contradictory on their part,
02:18but they said this should not be interpreted as a definitive figure.
02:23But, again, happy to provide those details,
02:25because I know the Republican side kept quoting that $500 billion figure over 10 years,
02:30but even GAO is not standing by that.
02:33The question also has to be asked.
02:35Why are House Republicans jumping through hoops to try to cut Medicaid,
02:42the health care of the American people, and cut nutritional assistance?
02:45It's all in service of enacting massive tax breaks for their billionaire MAGA donors like Elon Musk.
02:52The simple approach here, mathematically, is just to eliminate the tax breaks that you are trying to enact
03:01as it relates to your extreme MAGA Republican donors.
03:05And then you don't have to consider cutting Medicaid.
03:10You don't have to consider cutting SNAP.
03:13You don't have to consider cutting educational or housing benefits that the American people have earned.
03:20And have come to rely upon.
03:25This is all being done in service of rewarding their donors like Elon Musk.
03:31And it is unacceptable.
03:34And Republicans can't explain that rationally to the American people.
03:38And so, as a result, they go to old reliable waste, fraud, and abuse.
03:43Of course, Democrats are open.
03:47In every instance, try to make sure that the federal government is effective, efficient, and equitable.
03:55And to the extent that there's waste that can be found in any program, we're open to that in good faith.
04:03There is nothing close to $880 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse as it relates to Medicaid.
04:11There is nothing close to $230 billion as it relates to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
04:18It's all phony.
04:19And it's all designed to try to justify massive tax breaks for the wealthy, well-off, and well-connected billionaire donors of the Republicans.
04:30And that's something that the American people have made clear they reject.