Chuck Schumer Torches GOP Over Medicaid Cuts, Warns 14 Million Americans Could Lose Coverage

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about Medicaid cuts in the Republican budget.

Transcript

00:00On health care.

00:07Donald Trump and his so-called big beautiful bill is ugly to its very core.

00:16Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth.

00:21Tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans.

00:27Over the past few days, Donald Trump has tried to sell this bill to Republican senators with a new lie.

00:36He's been telling Republican senators and the American people that no one will lose coverage.

00:42That no benefits will be slashed.

00:45That the bill won't harm recipients.

00:49Let's call it what it is.

00:52A lie.

00:54People will lose coverage.

00:56Millions will.

00:56Donald Trump is lying to the American people when he says no one will lose coverage under this ugly bill.

01:05There is no way for Republicans to seek the cuts they want without removing millions of people off their health care in one way or another.

01:15I warn my Republican colleagues, do not buy Donald Trump's snake oil sales pitch.

01:21Republicans want to cut out waste, fraud, and abuse.

01:24Good.

01:25We'll help them do it.

01:27This bill certainly isn't that.

01:30Make no mistake.

01:32This big beautiful bill is in reality repeal and replace by another name.

01:37This is a health care bill to its core.

01:43To cut through their lies, let's talk facts.

01:46Fact.

01:4820 million Americans will see their health care costs go up.

01:51Fact.

01:5214 million Americans, including children and seniors, will lose their coverage entirely.

01:57Fact.

01:58Of adult Medicaid recipients.

02:00Fact.

02:02Adult Medicaid recipients.

02:05Vast majority.

02:06Overwhelming majority.

02:07Already work.

02:09Many of them will be thrown off coverage anyway.

02:12Fact.

02:14This bill has millions lose health care.

02:19Donald Trump wants to talk fraud.

02:22Republicans want to talk fraud.

02:24Fine.

02:25The fraud we actually see in Medicaid isn't coming from families making ends meet.

02:31It's coming from the top.

02:33Large providers.

02:34Unscrupulous bigwigs.

02:36The reality is that most fraud in Medicaid happens not with individual enrollees,

02:40but at the level of health care providers, not all of them, not most of them, but a handful

02:46who do fraud.

02:49Donald Trump, it's more than a handful, but it's not all of them at all.

02:54But Donald Trump is doing nothing to hold them accountable.

02:58Just the opposite.

03:00The other day, he pardoned a nursing home executive who skimmed $10 million from the paychecks of

03:05nurses, doctors, and other employees.

03:07Hear that, folks?

03:08Donald Trump, who says he wants to reduce fraud, just pardoned a nursing home executive who

03:17skimmed $10 million from the paychecks of his employees.

03:21The reality is simple.

03:23There's not enough fraud in Medicaid and ACA to make Republicans' math work.

03:28They know it.

03:29Republicans may not want to admit it publicly, but they know that under their current proposal,

03:34millions of Americans, including millions who are employed, who have families, will lose

03:40their health care coverage.

03:43Republicans want to shorten the enrollment period.

03:47They want to bury families in red tape.

03:50They want to drown states in new administrative hurdles.

03:54Republicans' strategy, in large part, is to make it so difficult for people to sign up for health care,

04:00health care, so easy to fall through the cracks that tens of millions of Americans will simply lose coverage.

04:06And it would be by design.

04:09Just ask the vote.

04:10Just look at 2025.

04:13Senate Republicans can make jokes all they want that we're going to die anyway.

04:18But for many working class Americans, health care is the difference between life and death.

04:24Let me be clear.

04:27Democrats are ready.

04:29When Republicans finally release the full text of their so-called big, beautiful bill,

04:34Americans' people will see the truth.

04:36They will see how ugly it is.

04:38And we will fight it with facts, with urgency, and with the voices of the millions of Americans

04:43who deserve better than this cruel, cynical attack on their health care and on their dignity.

04:50And we will see how ugly it is.

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