EXCERPT:
WELKER: “Mr. Speaker. So does the House bill put rural hospitals, and frankly, the most vulnerable Americans at risk?"
JOHNSON: "No, and you can underscore what I'm about to tell you. There are no Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill. We're not cutting Medicaid. What we're doing is strengthening the program. We're reducing fraud, waste and abuse that is rampant in Medicaid to ensure that that program is essential for so many people, ensure that it's available for the most vulnerable. It's intended for young, you know, single pregnant women, and the disabled, and the elderly. But what's happening right now is you have a lot of people, for example, young men, able-bodied workers, who are on Medicaid. They’re not working when they can. That drains resources from the people that need it most. And so what we're doing here is an important, and frankly, heroic thing to preserve the program so that it doesn't become insolvent. This is not going to hurt rural hospitals. There's a lot of flexibility built into this.”