There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it is withholding nearly $300 million from California after federal auditors have now confirmed that more than $1.8 BILLION in Medicaid funds may have been unlawfully spent on illegal immigrants across EIGHT states.
The update was revealed by Dr. Oz, who issued a blunt warning on X that the problem is “worse than we thought.”
According to Oz, federal law explicitly prohibits the use of federal Medicaid dollars for non-emergency care for illegal immigrants. While states are free to use their own state funds to provide such coverage, they are required to maintain a clear paper trail proving that no federal dollars were used.
As a result, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is now withholding nearly $300 million from California, which Oz described as “by far the worst offender,” until the state can demonstrate it complied with federal law.
“UPDATE: It’s worse than we thought.
In October, we flagged $1.3 billion in Medicaid funds that 6 states may have unlawfully spent on health care for illegal immigrants.
Since then, we’ve gathered more data and the total has grown to over $1.8 billion across 8 states.
It’s against the law to spend federal Medicaid funds on non-emergency healthcare for illegals. If states use their own money to do it, there needs to be a clear paper trail proving that federal dollars didn’t fund those services.
These states failed to provide that for this $1.8 billion. So today, CMS is announcing that we’re withholding nearly $300 million from California — which is by far the worst offender — until they demonstrate to our satisfaction that they’re spending that money properly.
Medicaid dollars belong to Americans, not illegal immigrants, and we won’t stop until we’ve held rogue states accountable and recovered their misspent funds.
More announcements to come.”
UPDATE: It’s worse than we thought.⁰ ⁰In October, we flagged $1.3 billion in Medicaid funds that 6 states may have unlawfully spent on health care for illegal immigrants.⁰ ⁰Since then, we’ve gathered more data and the total has grown to over $1.8 billion across 8 states.… https://t.co/UzswejZS7e
This revelation builds on explosive findings first disclosed in October, when CMS audits uncovered more than $1 billion in federal taxpayer funds being diverted to Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants despite repeated denials from Democrats and their media allies.
At the time, Oz warned Americans to ‘buckle up.’
“Buckle up for this one.
Based on our initial set of audits, more than $1B of federal taxpayer dollars were being spent on funding Medicaid for illegal immigrants. And my team is getting it back.
Some want to deny that illegal immigrants are receiving Medicaid. Others insist it’s illegal for Medicaid to cover illegal immigrants. And others accurately point out that hospitals can provide emergency services to illegal immigrants under the program.
We can all agree on this: rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse is essential to protecting this program for the most vulnerable. It’s also one of the Trump Administration’s top priorities.
Let me lay down the facts:
The truth is that federal law is supposed to prohibit federal Medicaid dollars broadly from being used to cover illegal immigrants. It does permit states to use Medicaid dollars for emergency treatment, regardless of patients’ citizenship or immigration status. States can also legally build Medicaid programs for illegal immigrants using their own state tax dollars, so long as no federal tax dollars are used.
But that didn’t stop Democrats from going even further by breaking federal law to give illegal immigrants federal Medicaid dollars meant for American citizens.
Earlier this year, the CMS team began auditing state Medicaid programs to ensure they were following the law and not spending any federal tax dollars on illegal immigrants outside of emergency Medicaid. What we found was shocking.
In a preliminary review of 6 states, we found those states improperly using federal tax dollars for their allegedly state-funded program and providing coverage to individuals, including some with criminal records of murder and assault.
Those states are: CA – $1,310,032,549 DC – $2,114,628 IL – $29,778,645 WA – $2,367,194 CO – $1,506,743 OR – $5,404,368
We notified the states, and many have begun refunding the money. But what if we had never asked?
Whether willful or not, the states’ conduct highlights a terrifying reality: American taxpayers have been footing the bill for illegal immigrants’ Medicaid coverage, despite many Democrats and the media insisting otherwise.
Democrats are demanding the repeal of the President’s Working Families Tax Cuts legislation in order for their votes to reopen the government. This law wisely strengthened our ability to limit federal dollars from being spent on health care for illegal immigrants. Until Democrats explicitly drop that demand, they’re blatantly holding the government hostage over giving Medicaid to illegal immigrants.”
WATCH: The Real Reason Democrats Are Shutting Down the Government
Many Americans are asking why Democrats forced another government shutdown. The truth is simple: it’s political theater.
After months of fading media attention and a struggling campaign season, Democrats needed a headline. The shutdown guarantees it.
But beneath the political noise lies a calculated strategy—one that hinges on expanding Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants and weaponizing public sympathy for future elections.
The debate began when Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping reform designed to close long-standing loopholes in federal spending. One of the most consequential provisions stopped states from passing Medicaid costs for illegal immigrants onto federal taxpayers.
The law required states to cover these costs themselves, eliminating a system that blurred eligibility lines and wasted billions of dollars each year.
Democrats want that provision repealed. Their refusal to pass a funding bill without restoring those payments is what triggered the shutdown.
Behind the rhetoric about “healthcare for all” is an effort to restore a hidden subsidy—one that forces law-abiding Americans to finance benefits for those who entered the country illegally.
California provides a striking example of how this system was abused.
In 2023, the state budgeted $3.9 billion in Medicaid spending for illegal immigrants. Because the federal government reimburses roughly 70% of state Medicaid expenses, most of that cost fell not on Californians, but on taxpayers from other states.
To inflate reimbursement further, California raised hospital and nursing-home taxes, recycled the funds back through Medicaid, and claimed it as new spending.
The maneuver created the illusion of a budget increase to qualify for more federal aid—a financial shell game that allowed the state to spend little of its own money while draining federal resources.
New York and Illinois soon followed. In 2024, New York allocated $2.4 billion to expand full Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants under 65, while Illinois extended coverage to noncitizens over 42.
The pattern is identical across each blue state: raise spending artificially, capture more federal dollars, and redirect those funds to individuals who are not legally eligible for the program.
The result is a program riddled with inefficiency and corruption.
Federal data show over five million ineligible people remain on Medicaid, costing taxpayers tens of billions annually.
The Government Accountability Office has labeled Medicaid a “high-risk program” for improper payments, with $30 billion in waste every year and more than $1.1 trillion in total losses over the past decade.
A Wall Street Journal review revealed that between 2019 and 2021, insurers pocketed $4.3 billion in duplicate payments for people enrolled in multiple states simultaneously.
One of its most significant provisions, the Big Beautiful Bill introduced a work requirement for able-bodied adults on Medicaid, ensuring that those receiving taxpayer-funded benefits are either employed, actively seeking employment, or participating in job training programs.
The goal was simple: to return Medicaid to its original purpose as a safety net, not a lifestyle subsidy.
Before the reform, millions of working-age adults with no disabilities received full Medicaid benefits without ever entering the workforce.
Studies from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that requiring just 20 hours of work or training per week could save tens of billions of dollars annually while helping nearly 2 million Americans move from welfare to employment.
The policy mirrors successful models in states like Arkansas and Indiana, where recipients who met work or community engagement benchmarks saw improved health outcomes, higher earnings, and reduced dependency on government aid.
Medicaid now consumes more than $800 billion annually, accounting for over 15% of all federal spending.
With the program’s future in jeopardy, enforcing eligibility rules is necessary.
Every dollar misused on those who broke U.S. law is a dollar denied to struggling American families. Medicaid was created to serve.
Democrats have turned a vital safety-net program into a campaign tool, betting that chaos will yield sympathy and electoral advantage.
The cost is borne by taxpayers who play by the rules, only to see their contributions diverted to those who do not.
Trump CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” to reveal that over $1 billion in federal tax dollars have been fraudulently spent on healthcare for illegal aliens. (Screenshot: FOX Business)
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Trump-appointed Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), just dropped a bombshell on national television, exposing over one BILLION dollars in fraudulent healthcare spending for illegal immigrants.
Appearing on Mornings with Maria on Friday, Oz revealed that his agency uncovered billions of taxpayer dollars funneled to illegal aliens in Democrat-run states, a direct violation of federal law.
“Maria, just in the last few months, in the few states that we’ve examined—less than half a dozen—we’ve identified more than a billion dollars, with a B, of federal tax dollars that have gone to illegal immigrants. We’re actually calling that money back from those states now.
But the fact that this could still happen is very frustrating to all of us. Why would you want to repeal that after all the work that was put into ensuring that these programs, which work so well for vulnerable populations, would remain intact financially?”
🚨 BREAKING: Trump CMS chief Mehmet Oz just said he found over $1 BILLION in fraudulent spending on healthcare for ILLEGAL ALIENS.
"In the few states we've examined, we've identified more than a BILLION DOLLARS of money – federal tax dollars – that have gone to illegal… pic.twitter.com/oF3eYjDNnT
During a “Fox & Friends” interview with Ainsley Earhardt last week, Dr. Oz blasted Democrat-led states for abusing taxpayer funds while gaslighting Americans about the extent of fraud within the Medicaid system.
According to Oz, CMS investigators discovered that Democrat-run states like California, Illinois, New York, and Minnesota have been using federal Medicaid dollars to provide full dental, vision, and comprehensive healthcare to illegal immigrants, services that even Medicare recipients don’t receive.
Oz said the Trump administration’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” was designed to block this very abuse and claw back stolen funds. But now, Democrats in Congress are trying to repeal the bill, which would reopen the floodgates for illegal spending.
The $1 billion figure may just be the beginning. Oz said his agency has only reviewed a fraction of states so far, and the full amount of misused funds could be “significantly higher.”
He revealed that some states have already started returning funds, acknowledging their wrongdoing as CMS tightens audits.
Ainsley Earhardt: As the government shutdown drags on, the White House is shedding light on how dozens of criminal illegal migrants received Medicaid before their arrests and deportations. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital, “Due to previously lax federal controls and Democrat state policies, criminal illegal murderers and rapists received Medicaid at the American taxpayers’ expense.”
Mehmet Oz: You know, the Democrats have been gaslighting us on this issue of Medicaid funds going to illegal immigrants for quite a while. When the President came into office, he insisted we take the fraud, waste, and abuse out of the system.
That’s why the One Big, Beautiful Bill has provisions to do just that. The shutdown, as you know, is in part because the Democrats want to repeal that landmark legislation.
They keep claiming that there is no money going from Medicaid—an agency that I run—toward illegal immigrants. We decided to do our homework. We sent our best investigators out to evaluate exactly what is going on.
I’m here to announce, Ainsley—and this is a big deal—that just over the last few months, we have proven that there’s been over a billion dollars. That’s a billion with a “B.” It’s a lot of money. It’s not a rounding error.
A billion dollars paid by U.S. taxpayers for illegal immigrants in about half a dozen states. We’re just getting started—it’s going to be significantly more money than that.
Just to break this down for everybody, Ainsley—if you live in Texas or Florida and you’re paying U.S. federal taxes (most people do), your money is being diverted to places like California, which have robust benefits for illegal immigrants—dental, vision, things you don’t even get on Medicare.
Those funds—we’ve had no ability to track them until today. Now we’re investigating, and we’re going to continue to track this across the country.
Ainsley Earhardt: Is that going to continue under the Trump administration? How can we stop this from happening?
Mehmet Oz: Well, the legislation allows us to do just that. We are no longer obliged to pay for illegal immigrants in states that decide, out of the largesse of their hearts, that they want to fund those programs.
If you want to fund full dental, vision, and robust health services in, for example, California or Illinois or New York or Minnesota—that’s your choice. But if you want to do that, you have to pay with your own state income tax. You can’t use federal dollars for that.
So we are clawing that money back. Some of these states know they’re guilty—they’ve already begun paying the money back. We will get all that money back into our federal coffers. The President is laser-focused on protecting the U.S. taxpayer.
But Ainsley, this raises a bigger issue—why are we shut down? The people who should be doing these investigations, the folks who can solve some of the problems we’re having to improve the quality of care—not just in healthcare but many other services—are being compromised by a shutdown that’s based on false information. There is money being given to illegal immigrants on Medicaid.
Again, Medicaid is designed for our most vulnerable, Ainsley. It’s designed for our kids, for our elderly, for folks who are struggling with significant health issues. They need those funds.
You can’t just dole that out to able-bodied illegal immigrants in states because they think it’s the right thing to do. If they want to pay for it, they should pay for it.
Mazie Hirono and Chuck Schumer with Spam. (The Office of Mazie Hirono)
Washington is once again at a standstill, but this shutdown is not about budget math or routine partisan squabbles.
At its core, the fight centers on one question that should be obvious: Should Medicaid, a safety-net program designed for low-income Americans, be stretched to cover illegal immigrants?
Democrats have answered yes, Republicans no—and the standoff has left taxpayers caught in the middle.
The fight began with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year. One of its most important provisions closed a Medicaid loophole that allowed states to pass the cost of illegal immigrant health care onto federal taxpayers.
WATCH:Medicaid for Illegal Aliens Is ROBBING U.S. Taxpayers Blind
That reform required states to fund those services themselves instead of exporting the bill nationwide.
Democrats are now demanding that this provision be undone, and their refusal to compromise has kept the shutdown going.
California illustrates how large the abuse has become.
In 2023, the state set aside $3.9 billion in Medicaid funds for medical services for illegal immigrants.
Because the federal government typically reimburses around 70% of Medicaid spending, taxpayers across the country ended up footing most of that bill.
To squeeze even more money from Washington, California raised provider taxes on hospitals and nursing homes, then cycled the revenue back through inflated Medicaid payments.
On paper, the state appeared to spend billions more. In reality, it was a budgetary trick designed to capture federal dollars and shift costs to the rest of the country.
New York followed the same playbook, allocating $2.4 billion in 2024 to extend full Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants under 65.
Illinois expanded coverage to noncitizens over 42.
The strategy is consistent: inflate Medicaid spending, collect federal reimbursements, and redirect money to people who are not legally eligible.
Citizens in states like Texas, Florida, and Ohio never voted for these policies, yet their tax dollars are used to finance them.
At the same time, Medicaid itself is weighed down by fraud and waste. Federal data show at least five million ineligible people remain enrolled.
Improper payments cost about $30 billion every year and have totaled more than $1.1 trillion over the past decade.
Between 2019 and 2021 alone, insurers collected $4.3 billion in duplicate payments for people enrolled in multiple states.
The Big Beautiful Bill targeted these exact abuses by tightening eligibility checks, banning the recycling of provider taxes, and enforcing stricter reporting standards.
The goal was straightforward: preserve Medicaid for citizens and legal residents who qualify—not expand it into a hidden subsidy for those who broke immigration law.
Democrats insist they are “defending health care.”
The reality is they are defending Medicaid access for illegal immigrants at a time when the program already costs more than $800 billion a year.
Protecting taxpayers and preserving Medicaid’s integrity should be the priority. Instead, Democrats have chosen to keep Washington closed until those benefits are restored.
The White House is exposing Democrats’ efforts to give illegal immigrants access to health care under the Biden administration, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Signal.
“This memo discusses specific actions taken by the Biden administration to provide Obamacare and Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants,” the document says.
President Donald Trump’s administration issued the memo on the seventh day of the government shutdown, which Republicans say has been caused by Senate Democrats’ unwillingness to pass a clean budgetary continuing resolution that doesn’t restore funding of health care for illegal immigrants.
The memo describes “how federal resources were abused by the Biden administration and Democratic states to provide health care for illegal immigrants.”
According to the memo, “14 states and the District of Columbia operate ‘state-funded’ health care programs for illegal immigrants.” They are California,Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois,Maine,Massachusetts,Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon,Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is currently reviewing and auditing eight of those states.
The memo says it is well-documented that California exploited a federal loophole to fund its “state- funded” Medicaid program for illegal immigrants, but “a broader program-integrity concern persists with the existence of such programs in states that operate them.”
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General found that in less than one year, California had improperly claimed $52.7 million in federal Medicaid funds for coverage of illegal immigrants. That occurred because California did not appropriately segregate funding for emergency Medicaid from non-emergency Medicaid.
The White House named Obamacare allowing states to waive certain provisions of the law as another example of a Democrat policy enabling illegal immigrants to get federally funded health care.
“The Biden administration approved numerous state waivers to allow illegal immigrants access to health insurance coverage, waiving the statutory prohibition against illegal immigrants enrolling in Obamacare plans, thus expanding health care to illegal immigrants,” the memo outlines.
The waivers allow federal dollars to be used to subsidize coverage for illegal immigrants both directly and indirectly, the White House says.
States with waivers that reduce federal spending on Obamacare subsidies receive funds known as “pass-through” payments. These are intended to represent the difference between federal spending on Obamacare subsidies in the absence of the waiver and federal spending on Obamacare subsidies under the waiver.
However, federal pass-through payments have been used to provide subsidies for the illegal immigrants made eligible for coverage under a waiver, the memo says.
“In addition, when federal ‘pass-through’ funds are used by a state through programs intended to buy down the cost of premiums for all exchange consumers, like reinsurance programs, illegal immigrants with plans benefiting from such premium reductions are effectively receiving a premium subsidy with federal funds,” according to the memo.
The White House listed instances in the Democrat-run states of Colorado, Maryland, and Washington as examples of waivers providing health care benefits to illegal immigrants.
Medicaid spending on emergency services for illegal immigrants nearly tripled under the Biden administration, growing from $3.07 billion in fiscal year 2020 to $9.12 billion in fiscal year 2024, the memo says.
Medicaid law requires states to provide a 90-day grace period, known as a “reasonable opportunity period,” for states to verify the immigration status of applicants into the program.
While states traditionally had the ability to limit the number of reasonable opportunity periods an individual could receive before verifying their immigration status to remain eligible for Medicaid benefits, the memo says, President Joe Biden prevented states from limiting the number of reasonable opportunity periods an individual may receive if they reapply for Medicaid at the end of each period, according to the White House.
“This action prevented states from requiring Medicaid applicants to verify their immigration status, creating an easily exploitable loophole through which illegal immigrants could receive federally funded coverage,” the memo says.
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This article was originally published at The Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian.
Speaker Mike Johnson dismantles CNN host Kaitlan Collins as he exposes Chuck Schumer’s reckless shutdown scheme and the Democrats’ push for illegal immigrant healthcare benefits.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins thought she could spin the truth behind the Schumer Shutdown.
With just hours before a looming government shutdown, Collins insisted that Democrats weren’t pushing healthcare for illegal immigrants.
But Speaker Johnson came prepared with precise fact-checks that dismantled CNN’s narrative and exposed the truth about the Schumer Shutdown.
Speaker Johnson told Collins that the shutdown was “inevitable now,” not because of Republicans, but because of Schumer’s partisan stunt.
The House passed a clean, short-term stopgap funding bill to keep the government open. Schumer rejected it.
Johnson laid it out clearly:
Democrats demanded restoring healthcare access for illegal aliens.
They wanted $500 million funneled back to leftist PBS propaganda.
They tried to slash funding for rural hospitals that serve working-class Americans.
They demanded $1.5 trillion in NEW spending tied to just a seven-week funding measure.
Instead of working with Republicans to responsibly extend funding until November, Schumer chose a shutdown.
On air, Collins repeatedly pushed a line meant to undercut the Republican narrative:
Kaitlan Collins: “People who are here in the United States legally have never been eligible for the Obamacare subsidies, for Medicare, for Medicaid. So what exactly are you saying they’re trying to do when you talk about giving free health care to them?”
Her implication is that the Democrats were not advocating for health coverage for illegal immigrants; this was just a Republican talking point.
Johnson refused to let that framing slide. Johnson argued that the Democrats’ counterproposal lacks the precision to guard against exactly the expansion of benefits to non-citizens and that the effect of their plan is precisely that.
Collins repeatedly tried to twist Johnson’s words, insisting Democrats’ proposal only affected “legal asylum seekers” or “temporary protected status” individuals.
Johnson reminded her of the CBO report showing 2.3 million ineligible enrollees removed from Medicaid under Republican reforms, saving taxpayers $185 billion and securing the program for U.S. citizens.
Democrats want to undo those safeguards, opening the door again for illegals to drain the system.
When Collins tried to claim “it’s against federal law” for illegals to receive benefits, Johnson fired back: “Federal law was not being enforced. That’s why our reforms were so important.”
Johnson pointed out that Maxine Waters, one of the most senior Democrats in the House, admitted on camera that Democrats want “healthcare for everybody.”
Even if Waters wasn’t the bill’s author, her candid slip confirms what Schumer and the radicals are truly after.
Collins scrambled to downplay it, but Johnson doubled down.
Mike Johnson: When we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill—the Work and Families Tax Cut—we had Medicaid reforms in the bill. You and I talked about it on the air. What we did was eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.
There were a lot of people in the program who were enrolled but were never eligible to be there. Medicaid is intended for eligible U.S. citizens—not illegal aliens, not U.S. citizens who are able-bodied workers like young men.
We passed the law, this President signed it into law. Democrats voted against it, of course, and it’s been wildly successful.
The CBO—the Congressional Budget Office, which is the neutral arbiter of all these things—released a report a few weeks ago, earlier this month. They said, You know what? The bill has had its intended purpose. Premiums are coming down. Listen, because 2.3 million ineligible enrollees have been kicked off of Medicaid, which helps to save the program and prop it up, $185 billion has been saved already.
Kaitlan Collins: Basically, what you did was narrow the eligibility for certain people to get access to the ACA subsidies. What they want to do is undo the changes that Republicans made in that. But basically, wouldn’t that only affect people who do have legal status—people who are refugee seekers here in the United States, asylum seekers here?
Mike Johnson: Those are two totally different issues. Now, they’ve created this as a new argument as to why they should not keep the government open. But they’re arguing a December policy debate for a September funding issue. The subsidies that you’re talking about don’t expire until the end of December.
Kaitlan Collins: No, the subsidies for just everyday Americans—that’s one thing that obviously has been the main premise of their argument. But you’re saying they want to give free health care to people who are in the United States illegally.
Mike Johnson: That is exactly what the effect will be.
Kaitlan Collins: But when I looked at it, there’s a little nuance. Because if they want to undo changes that you all made, narrowing who is eligible to get that, those are people who are refugee seekers, asylum seekers. They’re not technically people who are here illegally—just crossing the border.
Mike Johnson: No, this is exactly what will happen. And Maxine Waters admitted—I think accidentally today on the House steps—that they want to give health care to everybody.
Kaitlan Collins: But Maxine Waters is not in charge. She’s not the one. She didn’t write this proposal.
Mike Johnson: She’s one of the senior leaders in the House… Everybody should Google it and read their counterproposal yourself.
Kaitlan Collins: But you see my point, right? You’re making this argument that they want to just give health care to everyone who’s here illegally. This is not for people who cross the border and don’t have paperwork. These are people who have temporary protected status, right?
Mike Johnson: No. Absolutely, what will happen if that counterproposal was enacted is illegal aliens would be paid for by American taxpayers—hard-earned dollars would be paying for benefits for illegal aliens again. We’re not doing that.
Kaitlan Collins: But it’s against federal law for people who are here illegally to get health care.
Mike Johnson: Yes, and that’s why our reforms are so important to enforce all that. The important thing to remember is what’s happening—
Kaitlan Collins: I didn’t see that in the Democratic proposal, that people who are here illegally should get health care.
Mike Johnson: No, because they don’t have the level of specification that we had in our bill. It will unwind that, and all those things that the CBO just verified will be reversed. We can’t afford to do that.
Kaitlan Collin: But you see my point—that there’s nuance in the argument that you’re making, right?
Mike Johnson: No, I don’t see your point. That is a red herring in this debate. What they’ve decided to do tonight with their vote is to close the government. And what that means—everybody needs to understand—is real pain for real Americans. What does that mean?
It means women, infants, and children do not get their nutrition programs. That is not funded anymore. Veterans don’t get their health care services, suicide prevention, and other very important things that are very timely.
You have low-income persons who are Medicaid and Medicare recipients who are receiving care at home. Those programs are now lapsed. They will not be funded.
Kaitlan Collins: Yeah, you’re making a point about what happens if the government shuts down.
Mike Johnson: That’s right. And they just decided to do it. So the only question tonight is: how long will Chuck Schumer keep the government closed? It’s a dangerous gambit.
It’s something that he himself said his entire political career would be dangerous and disastrous. Roll the tape. We’re rolling the greatest hits on our social media.
Kaitlan Collins: I’m just saying that the point about giving people who are here illegally health care is not exactly what is in their proposal.
Mike Johnson: It is 100% what their proposal is.
Kaitlan Collins: It’s immigrants who have legal status, and you’re just… you’re running on who’s eligible. I looked at it, actually, because I was curious about your argument yesterday.
Mike Johnson: You should study the CBO’s analysis that they just put out a few weeks ago.
Kaitlan Collins: I saw that, about the 1.2 million people. You’re basically arguing about who has legal status—people who are seeking refuge here or seeking asylum.
Mike Johnson: No, I’m making sure that we—we’re making sure in our provisions that we signed into law—that health care benefits go only to eligible U.S. citizens. Chuck Schumer’s proposal—
Kaitlan Collins: But as is federal law.
Mike Johnson: Federal law was not being enforced. That’s the whole point. We had to fine-tune that so that we could strengthen the health care program. That’s what we did.
WATCH:
CNN's Kaitlan Collins attempted to obscure the truth behind the Schumer Shutdown, pushing a narrative that Democrats' demands wouldn't extend healthcare to illegal immigrants.
Speaker Johnson delivered 12 precise fact-checks to dismantle her claims.
Democrats bemoaning the loss of Medicaid coverage are glossing over a critical fact: States could fund the program themselves if they wanted to. The truth is, Medicaid is not nearly as popular as the taxes needed to keep it afloat.
There is a lot to complain about Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), signed into law last week. For example, it will add trillions to the deficit while allocating billions to be used for deporting hard-working immigrants and even American citizens. Yet Democrats are denouncing it not for its lack of fiscal responsibility, but rather for one of its only positive provisions: its reforms to Medicaid.
Original versions of the bill included various reforms to Medicaid, like work requirements for some able-bodied adults and provisions limiting funds for undocumented immigrants and gender transition procedures. To this, Democrats responded with instant outrage: “Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of kids, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities in our states and nationwide. Republicans’ proposed cuts would be disastrous.”
The final version of the bill eliminated some of the more thorny cost-saving provisions while keeping the work requirements in place. Yet Democrats are still dissatisfied with the bill, with California Gov. Newsom claiming that “the President and his MAGA enablers are ripping care from cancer patients, meals from children, and money from working families.”
You can tell this is nothing more than political posturing because there are no cuts to Medicaid to begin with. The OBBB only reduces the rate of growth of Medicaid spending, but the overall cost of the program to taxpayers will continue to increase. Cutting means getting rid of something, not reducing the rate at which you add stuff.
Maybe we should not be too hard on the semantics. After all, Americans have very little experience with Medicaid cuts. Throughout its 60-year history, the only time Medicaid spending was truly cut was in 2006, by a mere 0.25%. This should come as no surprise since Medicaid promotes excessive spending by design.
Medicaid is structured in such a way that for every $1 that states spend on Medicaid, the Federal government matches it by up to $9. This design allows state politicians to grant their constituents $10 in political goodies (Medicaid) while only incurring $1 of political cost (higher taxes). Where does the rest of that money come from? Federal taxes and debt.
Now that Washington is cutting back its match rate, this windfall of benefits without costs to states will slow down. States must choose between filling the funding gap themselves (by raising taxes) or reducing coverage. State officials (many of whom will be facing reelection in the next few years) would rather do neither and keep this party going.
Why not increase taxes and keep current coverage levels? Medicaid is an incredibly expensive program. States are already spending around a third of their budgets on it, and with healthcare costs outpacing inflation, this figure is expected to increase. With tax rates already among the nation’s highest, blue states have little room to fill the gap.
In a free market, consumers only purchase a product if they perceive its value to be greater than its price. The reason voters in blue states would reject higher taxes to pay for Medicaid is simply because they value their incomes more than they value the program. Even if you offered the average Medicaid enrollee 20 to 50 cents on the dollar for the benefits they receive, they would rather take the cash.
The biggest winners from Medicaid might not be those receiving care, but rather those providing it. Research suggests that up to 60% of all Medicaid spending acts as a direct transfer to medical providers, like hospitals. With the health sector dominating the lobbying expenditures of the last 27 years, this outburst of outrage from Democrats might be fueled by more than good intentions.
The BBB falls short on almost every front, but reducing the growth rate of a wasteful and distortive government program like Medicaid is a step in the right direction. If it pulls blue states (kicking and screaming) into being more fiscally responsible with all of our tax dollars, all the better.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Bautista Vivanco is a contributor for Young Voices and a health policy researcher. Originally from Argentina, he obtained his BA in Political Science and Economics from Winthrop University.
“The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” —James Madison (1794)
Senate inches closer to codifying DOGE cuts: Vice President JD Vance used his tiebreaking vote in the Senate Tuesday to bring some DOGE cuts to the Senate floor. Now that the bill has reached the floor, the Senate is expected to hold a vote-a-rama today to hammer out the details before sending the bill back to the House ahead of the Friday deadline for passage. The Senate has already removed some of the proposed cuts from the bill; the Bush-era President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has been protected, as has funding for tribal broadcasters. If the bill does not pass both chambers by Friday, then the clawback statute states that the White House has until the end of the fiscal year, September 30, to spend the funds.
Trump calls for release of “credible” Epstein info: Donald Trump says Attorney General Pam Bondi should release “any evidence she finds credible” from the Jeffrey Epstein case. The joint DOJ-FBI memo previously released stated that no evidence was found that could “predicate an investigation” into third parties. Most in the MAGA movement believe that there is more to the story. Bondi’s comments and actions are the source of the disbelief — the well-publicized “Epstein Files Part 1” binders that were handed out to conservative influencers, and Bondi’s comment that the files were “sitting on my desk to review.” Trump dismissed the Epstein story as “sordid but boring” and praised Bondi’s handling of the issue.
Indonesia trade deal: The U.S. has inked a new lucrative trade deal with one of our top 25 trade partners, Indonesia. Donald Trump announced the agreement on Tuesday, highlighting that the deal gives the U.S. tariff-free access to Indonesia’s markets, while Indonesia will pay 19% in tariffs to send its goods to America. Trump further noted that Indonesia “has committed to purchasing $15 Billion Dollars [sic] in U.S. Energy, $4.5 Billion Dollars [sic] in American Agricultural Products, and 50 Boeing Jets, many of them 777’s.” Last year, the United States traded over $38 billion in goods with Indonesia, resulting in a U.S. trade deficit of $17.9 billion. The terms of this deal are very similar to those of the Vietnam deal announced earlier this month, providing the U.S. with tariff-free access. In both cases, Trump had threatened tariffs of over 30%.
830% increase in anti-ICE assaults: From January 21 through July 14 of this year, the number of assaults against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials has spiked by 830% over the same period last year. “ICE law enforcement are succeeding to remove terrorists, murderers, pedophiles and the most depraved among us from America’s communities, even as crazed rhetoric from gutter politicians are inspiring a massive increase in assaults against them,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted on X. “It is reprehensible that our officers are facing this threat while simply doing their jobs and enforcing the law.” Indeed. Democrat lawmakers such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are encouraging people to “fight … in the streets” against the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, while also calling for ICE agents to be unmasked.
University of Michigan probed over biohazard smuggling: Two Chinese nationals associated with the University of Michigan were arrested for smuggling biohazards into the U.S. in June. The university now faces an investigation by the Department of Education. The DOE’s Office of General Counsel reported that Michigan has a “history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence” and that a review of its foreign reports revealed “inaccurate” disclosures. Michigan is one of the top public research universities in the world, but it may be failing to properly vet its foreign scholars.
Schiff is hitting the fan: California Sen. Adam Schiff, the longtime Democrat lawmaker who has repeatedly sought to bring down Donald Trump via dubious impeachment, now finds himself in legal trouble. The Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department requesting an investigation into Schiff for alleged mortgage fraud. The allegation, which was first reported by CNN in 2023, stems from Schiff having designated a home he owns in Maryland as his secondary residence even though he and his family live there most of the time. Schiff also owns a condo in California, which he designated as his primary residence, garnering himself a $7,000 reduction on the state’s 1% property tax. Schiff reportedly did not take any tax breaks on his Maryland house. Trump called Schiff “a Crook,” while Schiff pushed back by calling the allegation a “baseless attempt at political retribution.”
DOJ sues CPB board members who defied Trump’s firing: The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against three members of the five-member Corporation for Public Broadcasting board over their refusal to recognize Donald Trump’s having fired them back in April. Laura Ross, Thomas Rothman, and Diane Kaplan unsuccessfully challenged Trump’s firings in court, claiming that his actions were unlawful. Despite the court’s ruling against them, these three have ironically ignored the ruling and continued in their positions, even voting to change CPB’s bylaws to explicitly prevent the president from having the authority to fire board members. DOJ lawyers observed that the “defendants are defiantly acting as if the court granted the relief the court denied — raising the question of why they bothered to seek preliminary relief and consume the resources of the court and the parties if they were simply going to ignore any adverse ruling.”
Nearly one-third of pregnancies in England end in abortion: The British Office for National Statistics reported statistics showing that 29.7% of pregnancies in England and Wales ended in abortion in 2022. Ten years prior, 20.84% ended in abortion. Illegal abortions were not included in the dataset, so the actual number is likely higher. The study showed that most pregnancies (six in 10) occurred outside of marriage. In such circumstances, abortion occurs 36% of the time compared to 11% of pregnancies in a marriage. Similar statistics released in Ireland showed that 99% of abortions were not performed for the health of the mother. The U.S. is not far behind — about 21% of American pregnancies end in abortion. Approximately one-in-four American women will have an abortion in their lifetime.
Headlines
ICE declares illegal aliens ineligible for bond hearings (Daily Caller)
Thousands of members of the National Guard to be withdrawn from Los Angeles (Just the News)
Trump admin removes migrants to Southern African nation after SCOTUS victory (Fox News)
Trump administration ends Polymarket investigations without charges (CNBC)
State Department rolls out “pro-family” exemption to hiring freeze (Daily Wire)
First NYC, now Minneapolis primed for commie mayor (PJ Media)
Minnesota assassin’s confession letter released following federal indictment (RedState)
Iranian nationals caught at U.S.-Canada border amid rising sleeper cell fears on U.S. soil (Townhall)
Israel begins talks with countries that could take in Gazans under Trump plan (Washington Free Beacon)
Humor: Justice Roberts gives KBJ a Magna Doodle to keep her busy during oral arguments (Babylon Bee)
The laziest argument in all of politics is this: You can’t cut that program and leave people hanging! It’s cruel!
Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more successful political arguments. Who doesn’t want to be “generous” by helping other people?
That’s the case Democrats (and a few Republicans who should know better) have been making for months now regarding Medicaid. As I noted when OBBBA passed a couple of weeks ago, the law eliminates $1 trillion in waste from Medicaid. However, after growing by roughly 60% since 2019, the program is still slated to increase by approximately $1 trillion over the next 10 years, so, again, the “cuts” are actually reductions in growth.
As the bill worked its way through Congress, the Leftmedia gladly did Democrats’ bidding by almost literally screaming from the hilltops about all the poor people who would be cut off from the safety net, but the reality is that millions have become couch potatoes when they could be working and providing their own income. The program was not designed to cater to individuals who can provide for themselves.
Our Michael Swartz delved into the Medicaid debate in June, explaining that Republicans were introducing work requirements for able-bodied recipients of any Medicaid benefits — and even those don’t have to take effect until December 31, 2026. Furthermore, he said, “The other major change would be to eject illegal aliens off the Medicaid rolls, which they shouldn’t be on in the first place, but to no one’s surprise, several Democrat-run states had added them anyway.”
None of those details mattered to the politicos advancing the “you can’t cut that” narrative. The truth does matter, though.
I began this article by using the word “laziest.” Do you know who else is the laziest? Many Medicaid recipients. Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute lays out the somehow not-so-shocking truth:
For Medicaid recipients who do not report working, the most common activity after sleeping is watching television and playing video games. They spend 4.2 hours per day watching television and playing video games, or 125 hours during a 30-day month. That is more than 50 percent higher than the 80 hours they would be required to work or otherwise engage with the community during at least some months under the reconciliation bill. They spend on average 6.1 hours per day, or 184 hours per month on all socializing, relaxing and leisure activities (including television and video games). [Emphasis added.]
Democrats want you to think it’s cruel to ask those recipients to put down the video game controller and spend 80 hours per month doing something productive. That means, as The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board put it, “The Democratic position is that Medicaid should be a free universal benefit for men who refuse to work.”
Pro tip: It’s not helping people to enable them to remain dependent on a government program in perpetuity while they fill their time with vain pursuits. Redistributing taxpayer income to able-bodied or illegal-alien recipients is, frankly, theft from taxpayers.
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of government,” said the author of our Constitution, James Madison.
Nevertheless, many Christians fall prey to the Democrats’ false generosity gospel because Jesus did tell us to care for the poor. Here’s the rub: He told His followers to do so; He did not issue a call for the Roman government (or any other government) to do it. Left-wing churches might spend a little less time destroying God’s created gender order and a little more time helping those in real need.
Finally, leftists are not only caterwauling for Medicaid recipients, they’re screaming about how hard OBBBA’s budget will be for state governments. “By slashing health care and food assistance for low-income Americans,” Politico frets, “Republicans in Washington are passing tremendous costs onto the states, leaving local leaders from both parties grasping for ways to make up for billions in lost federal dollars.”
Why will this be hard on states? Because in states like New York, Politico admits, “About 44 percent of the state’s residents are enrolled in Medicaid or have state-sponsored coverage.”
Oh.
In short, no one is “gutting the social safety net.” Far from it, in fact. If 44% of a state’s population is on the dole, clearly that means the net has become a hammock for too many. OBBBA took only the most modest steps in changing that gloomy reality.
Emmy Griffin: Chip and Joanna Gaines Take a Heartbreaking Stance — The Christian media moguls produced a new show that promotes same-sex marriage and surrogacy, and then doubled down on the misstep by calling American Christians “hateful.”
Thomas Gallatin: Trump’s Masterful NATO Arms Deal — To aid in its fight against Russia’s invasion, Ukraine will soon be getting top weapons from the U.S. that will be paid for by our NATO allies.
Michael Swartz: The Palisades Rebuilding Fiasco — While Gavin Newsom takes “Rome wasn’t built in a day” to a whole new level, he leaves LA residents to languish after losing their homes in the Palisades fire in January.
Linda Moss Mines: McKinley’s Second Term Interrupted by Assassin’s Bullet — Reelected in 1900, William McKinley’s place in history seemed to be written as an expansionist president who was balancing power in both foreign and domestic policy.
AOC + Mamdani = New York’s Destruction — Not only is Zohran Mamdani a socialist nut job, he’s also a sleazy dirtbag. So, let’s hope New York doesn’t elect him as its new mayor.
We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island — Even in death, the secrets of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his infamous private island remain tightly guarded. But in 2024, WIRED conducted an investigation uncovering the data of mobile devices belonging to almost 200 of his visitors.
Disney’s Woke Agenda Is Worse Than You Think — Disney’s initiative is no longer making wholesome family content. Instead, it’s prioritizing the woke agenda. Show this video to your liberal friend as proof.
“I worked until January and then I took time away from my job, and one of the major reasons I could do so was because I knew that if I ran out of my savings my family would be able to support me.” —Marxist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani
The BIG Lie
“[The Trump administration wants] more people behind bars. They want to incarcerate more people, and they want to ethnically cleanse this country.” —Rep. Maxwell Frost
Dumb & Dumber
“Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American. … Now, no one’s allowed to say that the foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that’s naughty.” —Tucker Carlson
“There are a lot of Americans who’ve served in the IDF. They should lose their citizenship.” —Tucker Carlson
“We better pray long and hard that the country is going to be in a f***ing depression, because I don’t know how else we find ourselves out of this mess.” —anonymous Democrat strategist
“People who feel bad for JD Vance’s kids as family gets booed at Disneyland. I get it, but better those kids know now what their father is about. Other kids are watching their parents get shipped off to gulags.” —Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery
Re: The Left
“God bless the men and women of ICE. They are heroes … who put on that uniform every day and deserve to go home safely to their families at night — and the Democrats who are allowing this violence to take place against them should be ashamed of themselves.” —White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
“People aren’t merely units of economic activity who exist to produce higher aggregate numbers on a spreadsheet. They’re human beings who find meaning in their family, local community and country. And an invasion of foreigners — even if it’s encouraged by political leaders — can be extremely disruptive to a culture.” —Victor Joecks
“Just to be clear, Demos are screaming about eight million people expelled from Medicaid and three million people expelled from SNAP who never qualified for those taxpayer-funded handouts.” —Mark Alexander
Double Standards
“So, Demos want ICE agents to present ID to ensure they can be doxed and their families attacked, but don’t want voters to present IDs to make sure they are Americans…” —Mark Alexander
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
“Instead of introducing legislation for ICE/CBP officers to unmask, why haven’t these mindless leftist lemmings masquerading as elected officials condemned the violence that their rhetoric is causing?” —Allen West
Political Futures
“I don’t think this administration will be defined by [Jeffrey Epstein]. It will be defined by whether or not it can re-industrialize America, change our trade regime, and deport the foreign invasion.” —Christopher Bedford
“Let me tell you right now, I am sold on Trump. … I think he’s got a good shot at going down in history as one of our best presidents ever.” —Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone to a CNBC host who pointed out, “That is a real turnaround because you didn’t want to vote for him.”
Victory Lap
“President Trump … has delivered now the most successful first six months of any president in the modern era, and many argue probably in the history of this great nation. And he’s shown no signs of stopping.” —House Speaker Mike Johnson
ON THIS DAY in 1945 at Alamogordo Air Base in New Mexico, the U.S. detonated its first experimental atomic bomb. Three weeks later, the bomb would be used on Japan.
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