Ron Johnson Asked Point Blank About Giving Tax Cuts While Reducing Medicaid Funding

Forbes Breaking News

At a teletownhall on Monday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was asked about medicaid funding.

Transcript

00:00Next, we'll go to Carly in Brooklyn.

00:02Well, Carly, thanks to you online.

00:03What's your question?

00:05Hi, thank you for having this town hall.

00:07I am an OB-GYN practicing in Madison.

00:11I've also practiced in rural Wisconsin.

00:16And I wonder how we are so focused on talking about reducing deficits and so focused on

00:24talking about reducing Medicaid spending when we are also expanding massive tax cuts.

00:32Because you sit here and talk about how my patients, my Medicaid patients who need my

00:38care are, you know, just using the system for their care.

00:45When in reality, what will happen when you take Medicaid funding away is those people will

00:50show up in crisis, and all of us will still end up paying, only we'll pay more, and more

00:56of the hospitals will close, and there will be less people and less resources available

01:00for all of the other people who are also paying for it.

01:04So, Carly, first of all, I'll ask you, do you want a tax increase?

01:08Because had we allowed the Tax Cutting Jobs Act to expire, there would have been a $4 trillion

01:12tax increase on virtually every American that pays taxes, because we cut them for virtually

01:16every American, as much as Democrats, lied about that back in 2017.

01:20So, again, I want to prevent a massive lot of tax increase.

01:23I actually don't mind if somebody is spending my money on something that actually helps my

01:29fellow Americans.

01:31But right now, what I feel like is happening is we're just stripping it away from the people

01:35that need it and giving it to people who have massive amounts of money already.

01:39Okay, well, Carly, we went from $4.4 trillion to over $7 trillion in six years.

01:43We are wasting all kinds of money.

01:45And that's one of the reasons I want to do this audit.

01:47But, again, let's just go back to Medicaid and talk about the Obamacare addition to it.

01:52I don't know that you are aware, but for a single, childless, working-age, able-bodied

01:57adult, for every dollar the state spends on that Medicaid patient, the federal government

02:02kicks in $9.

02:04For every disabled child, probably the people you're taking care of, for every dollar the

02:09state kicks in, the federal government puts in $1.33.

02:12That's the way Medicaid was designed.

02:14The states were going to administer the program, but they had to have significant skin in the

02:17game so they would actually control eligibility, try and control costs.

02:22Obamacare was a Democrat scheme to move to a single-payer system, so they incentivized

02:27states to sign up single adults.

02:29Rather than incentivizing childless, single, able-bodied, working-age adults to go get a

02:35job and get health care through there, they incentivized them to come on to a governor

02:39in health care and actually incentivized them not to work, and a lot of them take them

02:43up on that offer, combined with food stamps and all the other support we give to people

02:47who don't work.

02:48I just think the best, most humane thing to do is encourage people to work, help them

02:55find jobs.

02:57But again, I think it's just grotesque that we literally pay $9 for every dollar the state

03:03spends on a single, able-bodied adult and only $1.33 for every dollar we spend on a disabled

03:10child.

03:10I mean, it's a complete, it's bizarre, okay?

03:13And again, it's led to provider taxes, provider fees, which are not health care, driving up

03:18the cost of Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars that we can't afford that we're

03:21mortgage-generated children's future to fund.

03:24So we just have a basic disagreement.

03:27But Carly, thanks for working health care.

03:29I truly do appreciate that.

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