Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday defended cuts to Medicaid within the budget bill House Republicans passed last month from allegations that thousands and thousands of Americans could lose their access to this system, saying that “4.8 million people is not going to lose their Medicaid unless they decide to achieve this.”
Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the bill imposes “common sense” work requirements for some Medicaid recipients and added that he’s “not buying” the argument that the work requirements, which would require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work, take part in job training programs or volunteer for 80 hours a month, are too “cumbersome.”
“You are telling me that you’ll require the able-bodied, these young men, for instance, okay, to only work or volunteer of their community for 20 hours per week. And that is too cumbersome for them?” Johnson told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “I’m not buying it. The American people should not buying it.”
The bill also adds latest rules and paperwork for those Medicaid recipients and increases eligibility checks and address verifications.
Johnson argued that the work requirements “must have been put in a protracted time ago.”
“The people who find themselves complaining that these individuals are going to lose their coverage because they cannot fulfill the paperwork, that is minor enforcement of this policy, and it follows common sense,” Johnson added.
Johnson’s comments come as Republicans have faced pushback on the town halls for the cuts to Medicaid within the “One Big Beautiful Bill” package that passed along party lines within the House last month.
Reps. Mike Flood, R-Neb., and Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, were booed once they mentioned their support for the package at events of their districts. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, also faced pushback after she defended the proposed cuts, telling attendees of a town hall on Friday, that ‘all of us are going to die.’
The move has also faced criticism from some Senate Republicans. Last month, before the House passed their bill, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote in a Latest York Times op-ed that there’s a “wing of the party [that] wants Republicans to construct our big, beautiful bill around slashing medical health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is each morally incorrect and politically suicidal.”
Democrats and other opponents of the bill have seized on quite a lot of provisions that include lots of of billions of dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, a federal program that gives healthcare for low-income Americans.
Democrats, including Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who appeared on this system after Johnson, have argued that Medicaid recipients who get tripped up by the reporting requirements which can be set to be imposed alongside the brand new work requirements will result in the lack of healthcare coverage for thousands and thousands.
“That is what this laws does, that they are attempting to do, they will throw poor people away,” Warnock told Welker.
Warnock referenced an examination that he conducted on his home state of Georgia, which he said “shows that this work reporting requirement — because that is what we’re talking about, not work requirements — work reporting requirement is superb at kicking people off of their health care.”
“It is not good at incentivizing work in any respect,” he added.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where Johnson said he was confident that the bill would make it out of Congress and to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4.
“We will get this done. The earlier the higher,” Johnson said on Sunday, adding later, “We will get it to the president’s desk, and he’ll have a — we’re all going to have an excellent celebration — on Independence Day, by July 4, when he gets this signed into law.”
