Speaker Mike Johnson says some Medicaid recipients will 'choose' whether to lose health care under House spending bill

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday defended cuts to Medicaid in the budget bill House Republicans passed last month, saying that “4.8 million people will not lose their Medicaid unless they choose to do so.”

Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the bill imposes “commonsense” work requirements for some Medicaid recipients and added that he’s “not buying” the argument that the work requirements, which would require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work, participate in job training programs or volunteer for 80 hours a month, are too “cumbersome.”

“You’re telling me that you’re going to require the able-bodied, these young men, for example, OK, to only work or volunteer in their community for 20 hours a week. And that’s too cumbersome for them?” Johnson told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “I’m not buying it. The American people are not buying it.”

The bill also adds new rules and paperwork requirements for those Medicaid recipients and increases eligibility checks and address verifications.

Johnson argued that the work requirements “should have been put in a long time ago.”

“The people who are complaining that these people are going to lose their coverage because they can’t fulfill the paperwork, this is minor enforcement of this policy, and it follows common sense,” Johnson added.

Johnson’s comments come as Republicans have faced pushback in town halls for the cuts to Medicaid in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” package that passed along party lines in the House last month.

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Reps. Mike Flood, R-Neb., and Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, were booed when they mentioned their support for the package at events in their districts. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, also faced pushback after she defended the proposed cuts, telling attendees at a town hall on Friday that “we all are going to die.”

The move has also faced criticism from some Senate Republicans. Last month, before the House passed its bill, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote in a New York Times op-ed that a “wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also expressed disdain for the Medicaid provision when he was asked to respond to Hawley's assertion that it would not play well politically for Republicans.

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"I think it was a bad strategy," Paul said, adding later, "They should have been satisfied by just doing the tax part of this and not getting involved into the debt part of it.”

Democrats and other opponents of the bill have seized on a number of provisions that include hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, a federal program that provides health care for low-income Americans.

Democrats, including Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who appeared on the program after Johnson, have argued that Medicaid recipients who get tripped up by the reporting requirements that are set to be imposed alongside the new work requirements will lead to the loss of health care coverage for millions.

“This is what this legislation does, that they’re trying to do. They’re going to throw poor people away,” Warnock told Welker.

Warnock referenced a study that his office conducted in his home state of Georgia that he said “shows that this work reporting requirement — because that’s what we’re talking about, not work requirements, work reporting requirement — is very good at kicking people off of their health care.”

“It’s not good at incentivizing work at all,” he added.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where Johnson said he was confident it would advance and make it to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4.

“We’re going to get this done. The sooner the better,” Johnson said Sunday, adding later: “We’re going to get it to the president’s desk, and he’s going to have a — we’re all going to have a glorious celebration on Independence Day, by July 4, when he gets this signed into law.”