Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) discusses Medicaid and his goal of reforming it.
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00:00What was sort of the message that you gave them on what might be possible on Medicaid?
00:14That Medicaid has grown by 50% in five years.
00:19There are people on Medicaid that Obama put on Medicaid that are able-bodied.
00:24Medicaid's purpose is to help poor people, disabled people.
00:30And Obama added a lot of people who are able-bodied, and we need to make sure that Medicaid goes back to its original purpose.
00:41Obama wants everybody under government-run health care.
00:44We want to help the poor and the disabled.
00:47But Medicaid is going to outpace Medicare in spending, and this is a great opportunity to reform it.
00:53And there's a money laundering element to this, where states tax providers, hospitals and other providers, and they take that money and they get more federal government money for it.
01:08And that's a scam.
01:10It's scamming the matching part of Medicaid.
01:13And I think we need to fix that now because Medicaid is growing so fast, so out of control, so away from its original purpose,
01:24that it literally will take over Medicare and spending.
01:27To everybody on Medicare, you should care about Medicaid being abused because one day it could affect the viability of Medicare because there's only so much money around it.
01:38Can I ask you specifically, are you committed to changing the FMAP?
01:42Is that what they're talking about?
01:43We're talking about Obamacare expansion, 90-10 matching.
01:48Right, but I mean, if you want to change what the federal government's contribution to that would be.
01:53Yeah, I want to have, yes, I want to have, for disabled, for the, it's 50-50 for the disabled.
02:01It's 90-10 for the expanded population.
02:04But there's a lot of guys in your conference, I talked to Josh Hawley this morning, who said that that is a no-go for him.
02:10Well, then he can, I like Josh a lot.
02:13I think the whole idea of using Medicaid to help able-bodied people who could be working, most Americans will say no to.
02:24And the 90-10 match bothers me because basically the federal government is on the hook for all of these able-bodied people.
02:38And I like Josh, but I would ask him to go look at this.
02:42Is this really what Medicaid's about?
02:45Is Medicaid about the federal government, you know, putting able-bodied people who are capable of working on Medicaid?
02:53Is that what it's about?
02:54It's not for me.
02:55And are you committed to getting the $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in spending cuts?
02:58Yeah, and I think the only way you're going to do that is be able to go into the programs that are being abused and fix them.
03:07Are you open to the idea of having the federal government contribute to food stamps?
03:11Or, excuse me, states contribute to food stamps?
03:15Nobody's talked to me about that.
03:17I'm more worried about Medicaid.
03:18Medicaid, because Medicaid, I've talked to my state, it's just so many people on Medicaid are well above the poverty line.
03:29And Medicaid was designed to help poor people and disabled people.
03:33Count me in.
03:34It's been abused by Obama.
03:37And we're going to fix it.
03:38And if we can't fix it as Republicans, then I don't want any more complaints.
03:43Because, you know, we've got a chance to fix it.
03:48And if we fail, I think we'll pay a heavy price.
03:51Where's Trump on this?
03:52I think he's open-minded to stopping the scams and making sure there's a real work requirement.
03:58If you can't win the argument that able-bodied people on Medicaid should have a work requirement,
04:08you're not a very effective representative.
04:11But work requirement is one thing, changing the FNAPs and other things.
04:14Well, we'll see for all this goes.
04:17Thank you, sir.