Failed idea features prominently in Republican bill despite red state regret
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In just a moment, we're going to talk with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. No one's done more to push health care through the House and to protect it than Speaker Pelosi. And I am looking forward to talking to her about that and whether she thinks Mike Johnson has the votes. But I want to start by just talking about what's actually in this bill. That is a pivotal thing for all of us to know and and whether it's going to get through. I mean, Mike Johnson announced that he plans to bring Trump's, quote, big, beautiful bill to the floor for the other tonight or tomorrow morning. Well, as I mentioned, we're going to keep watching that. We'll see. We'll see what he has. One of the factors here is whether or not the right wing of the Republican Party is willing to agree to the Medicaid cuts and what they have or whether they want more. And House Republicans have basically been desperately pushing to rush this budget bill into law, to rush it through on their own fabricated Memorial Day timeline. They basically pulled an all-nighter last night, starting at 1 a.m.
last night because that was the earliest they could start, in order to speed this bill through as quickly as possible. Conveniently, literally in the middle of the night, in the dark of night. The hearings were so late that at one point, at least one Republican congressman, South Carolina's Ralph Norman, you can see him right there having a little beauty slumber, I suppose. He seemed to have trouble staying awake. Seemed to have a lot of trouble actually staying awake. His poor hand, I don't know what's happening there. But at the end of the day, I mean, while massive cuts to Medicaid, to health care, SNAP benefits, that's all of what's in this bill, and we're going to talk about it, may be utterly boring, I guess, to Ralph Norman and other Republicans who weren't caught on camera last night, to some sitting in the comfort of House chambers. Americans all over the country are understandably worried and outraged.
I mean, this is how local news, which always tells you whether it's breaking through, is covering this budget. Hundreds of thousands of Utahns are at risk of losing access to medical care or paying a higher cost. Right now, Republicans in Congress are planning big cuts to Medicaid with the aim to offset tax cuts. Maryland leaders are worried that changes could cost the state up to a billion dollars and knock tens of thousands of people off their health insurance. More than 300,000 people in Arizona could lose their health care coverage if the bill passes. The potential cuts that we're hearing could impact over 40,000 upwards to 60, 80,000 West Virginians potentially could lose their coverage. So, yes, it's a it's a big concern.
Now, even after you heard all of that from local news anchors just trying to tell their communities about what was happening, the latest Trumpian spin seems to be that the only things this budget cuts from Medicaid are waste, fraud and abuse, which is quite a piece of spin. because a core concept of this bill is the idea of adding work requirements to Medicaid. Now, this has been tried many times before, and we already know that it does not work because we've seen it not work. Back in 2023, Georgia added work requirements to its state Medicaid plans, and the program that checked whether people were working enough to qualify was something they called Pathways. Last year, to promote the program, Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp released an ad.
And it's an ad about a mechanic named Luke Seaborn, who was one of the first Georgians to receive Medicaid from Pathways. Seaborn became kind of a poster boy for the program. My name's Luke Seaborn, 53, and we've been here at the shop at this place since 2018. Pathways is a great program that offers insurance to low-income and working professionals such as myself, and that's what I was. I was looking for insurance, low-income insurance, to help my son and I out because we didn't have insurance. I highly recommend Pathways to anybody that can use it and qualifies.
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