Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sidestepped a question about whether he supported states giving illegal migrants taxpayer-funded health insurance at a press conference Wednesday.
The House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act included a provision to penalize 14 states and the District of Columbia who enroll illegal immigrants in state health insurance programs by reducing their federal Medicaid funding for the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion population. The Daily Caller News Foundation asked Schumer about the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) preliminary projections that 1.4 million illegal immigrants would lose health coverage as a result of this provision in the House-drafted bill.
Schumer immediately reacted by slamming the president’s tax and spending bill before offering a word salad on his opposition to congressional Republicans’ proposed crack down on states who give illegal migrants free healthcare.
“The bottom line is the overall bill is so awful,” Schumer said. “If they want to aim — if they got some specific issues aim it, don’t just do just do a ‘meat axe,’ chainsaw, across the board and cut everything, everything, everything.”
“This goes way beyond what they’re talking about and hurts everybody,” Schumer added.
The DCNF’s Andi Shae Napier attempted to ask a follow-up regarding Schumer’s opposition to the Medicaid reform provision before he declared “next question.”
The Democratic leader also incorrectly said the CBO projections were “GOP numbers” and questioned the accuracy of the congressional scorekeeper’s estimates.
The Medicaid provision specifically lowers the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage (FMAP) — the Medicaid match rate the federal government pays to states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act — from 90% to 80%. The proposal would force certain blue states to cover 20% of the cost themselves, putting billions of dollars in Medicaid funding they depend on at risk.
GOP lawmakers and Trump administration officials have defended their Medicaid reforms as preserving the entitlement program’s benefits for those who need it most while eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Savings generated from reforming Medicaid contributed in part to more than $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over a decade in the president’s landmark bill.
“We’re not cutting Medicaid,” Speaker Mike Johnson told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker on Sunday. “What we are doing is reducing the program wrought with fraud, waste and abuse to make sure that that program is essential to so many people and ensure that it is available for the most vulnerable, and it’s intended for young, single pregnant women, the disabled and elderly.”
Johnson added that 7.6 million people “will supposedly be affected by this,” referring to preliminary CBO projections. “When you look at the numbers and break them down, this is high on public opinion. You are talking about [removing] 1.4 million illegal immigrants.”
A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment seeking clarification on the Democratic leader’s position.
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