[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 7, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H1898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MEDICAID
(Mr. BRECHEEN asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. BRECHEEN. Mr. Speaker, Medicaid was created to provide health
insurance for the poor, blind, disabled, pregnant, and elderly. Mr.
Speaker, as you can see from this Paragon chart, Medicaid is no longer
for the poor and now serves more people living above the poverty line
than below it.
Additionally, since 2012, the Medicaid population has grown 60
percent, while the U.S. population has only grown about 6 percent
according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Following ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion, able-bodied adults now make
up its largest subgroup according to FGA. Democrats claim these able-
bodied adults are working, but these claims are derived from self-
reported data relying on sample sizes as small as a few dozen.
In reality, FGA has records for 21 million beneficiaries among 23
States showing that 6 in 10 of these able-bodied beneficiaries do not
work at all.
As more able-bodied individuals are added to Medicaid, truly needy
and disabled Americans are being displaced from priority services.
700,000 disabled Americans are stuck on Medicaid wait lists while able-
bodied adults above the poverty line have access to taxpayer-funded
healthcare.
The goal of social programs should never be to gain able-bodied
enrollees, but to decrease government dependency and help them escape
poverty as shown during this chart's depiction of the Contract With
America and the first Trump administration time period.
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