House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) chided House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for resorting to “fear-mongering” when discussing Medicaid in the GOP budget reconciliation budget plan.
On the latest episode of “Fox News Sunday,” anchor Shannon Bream played a clip of Jeffries warning about what Republicans intend to do with Medicaid as the House and Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the program, has been tasked with cutting $850 billion.
“They want to end Medicaid as we know it,” Jeffries said. “They’re going to hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt people with disabilities, close hospitals, shut down nursing homes, and people will die.”
Arrington dismissed the top House Democrat’s dire assessment.
“The question is, will we be susceptible to the fear-mongering and the false rhetoric that you just heard from the Democrat minority leader in the House? And this is the same tired play they run and unfortunately, Republicans haven’t collectively leaned in and just done the right thing,” Arrington said.
“We will be rewarded because we’re doing this for the sustainability of these programs for the most vulnerable, as well as being fiduciaries for tax dollars,” he added. “And this moment will not happen in my political lifetime again, so we have to seize it, do the right thing and go educate and sell what we did to the American people. And the benefits that accrue, I think will come to fruition by the midterms and it will go well for our party.”
Lawmakers in Congress are working to devise a budget reconciliation bill after passing a blueprint last month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently suggested the legislation could be complete by Independence Day.
All the details of the final bill have yet to be ironed out, but President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted he would not touch Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security. Trump also has said fraud and illegal immigrants will be rooted out of the system.
The question of whether Republicans will “surrender the opportunity to actually bend the curve on entitlement spending and enact entitlement reforms” was one that, according to Arrington, has him using “if” conditional language when discussing the prospect of achieving the framework’s goals.
“Because there is a tremendous amount of waste and fraud,” he said. “In fact, the Government Accountability Office says upwards of $500 billion over the 10-year budget window just in Medicaid, you’ve got hundreds of billions siphoned out for other purposes than serving the Medicaid beneficiary,” he said. “There is no work requirement for able-bodied adults like there is in every other means-tested welfare program.”
Arrington continued: “And, in fact, Medicaid — because we give a higher federal match to able-bodied adult population, this is the Obamacare expansion population — we actually hurt access to the pregnant, blind, disabled, the most vulnerable, the poorest and sickest among our fellow Americans as a result of the structure of the program. We can save over $1.5 trillion without touching a dime of the benefit funding.”
