Ron Johnson Confronted By Constituent For Big Beautiful Bill Stripping Her Husband Of Healthcare

Forbes Breaking News

At a tele-town hall, a constituent confronted Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) about the effect of the Big Beautiful Bill on her husband's healthcare coverage.

Transcript

00:00Let's go to Cantina Racine.

00:03Well, Cantina, thanks for staying on the line.

00:05What's your question?

00:07Sure.

00:08And thank you for having a town hall today.

00:11My question to you is this.

00:13Even though you did sign for the bill and everything,

00:17did you ever consider about lower- and middle-income people how this will hurt?

00:22My husband, who works 9 to 5 every day at Ace Hardware,

00:27has a metal spine that has Medicaid so he can go and get better so he can work.

00:33And by you putting in the money for it, my husband doesn't have coverage,

00:38he doesn't work a full-time job, and I'm looking at getting a second job

00:42just to be able to pay for Medicare.

00:44Did you ever consider about the people that you are hurting by signing this bill?

00:49Well, the work requirement for Medicaid eligibility, by the way,

00:53Wisconsin did not expand Medicaid.

00:56So we have Medicaid based on where you are in terms of the federal poverty law.

01:03So, again, we didn't expand it.

01:05That may change because we're not fixing the Obamacare addition,

01:08which is, again, putting at risk Medicaid for the truly vulnerable.

01:13So, again, Wisconsin is slightly different than most states who are completely abusing the process.

01:18And, again, I think what's unfortunate is we just may see Wisconsin really engage in the same type of behavior that other states are,

01:28which is just not feasible.

01:30So I've got a pretty good video up on my ex post where we're talking about, you know, Republican leaders say we don't have a revenue problem,

01:37we have a spending problem.

01:39Again, $4.4 to $7 trillion.

01:40I hope most people recognize that's completely unjustified.

01:44It's not like we're spending too little.

01:46We're spending way too much and we're wasting too much money.

01:49I realize the media, I realize Democrat lies.

01:52We're talking about all these cuts.

01:54All we're doing is reducing the growth in spending, which is completely unsustainable.

01:59So I know you're probably concerned and afraid because of all that scare mongering,

02:04but we're not cutting spending on these programs.

02:07We're just trying to fix the problem of Medicaid's, of Obamacare's addition to Medicaid, which puts all that at risk.

02:14As Elon Musk says in that video, if we don't fix this, there won't be money for any of these things.

02:20And one of the reasons people got pretty snarly during the 2024 election is because the 40-year high inflation

02:26caused by massive, out-of-control deficit spending that we can't afford.

02:32And he devalued the dollar.

02:34I laid out those different pre-pandemic levels of spending from 1998, 2014, 2019.

02:39I also took a look at what is your dollar worth?

02:42Your 1998 dollar is now worth 51 cents.

02:46A dollar you held in 2014 is worth 74 cents.

02:50A dollar you held as recently as 2019 is worth 80 cents.

02:54That is wiping out people's savings.

02:56It is making all these goods and services, you know, unaffordable.

03:02And again, that's all because of massive government deficit spending.

03:07But again, I don't think the solution was a massive $4 trillion tax increase on every single America,

03:13which is what we're looking at had we not passed the recent bill.

03:17But, Katina, thanks for staying in line.

03:19Appreciate your question.

03:20our next question.

03:21.

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