{"id":10761,"date":"2025-06-29T17:01:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T17:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/we-dont-pay-people-in-this-country-to-be-lazy-mullin-says-of-medicaid-work-requirements\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T17:01:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T17:01:44","slug":"we-dont-pay-people-in-this-country-to-be-lazy-mullin-says-of-medicaid-work-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/we-dont-pay-people-in-this-country-to-be-lazy-mullin-says-of-medicaid-work-requirements\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;We don&#8217;t pay people in this country to be lazy,&#8217; Mullin says of Medicaid work requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. Markwayne Mullin is insisting President Donald Trump&#8217;s sweeping domestic megabill doesn&#8217;t break his promise not to cut Medicaid, even as the Congressional Budget Office estimates 7.8 million people would lose access if it passes.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Mullin (R-Okla.) told NBC&#8217;s Kristen Welker on Sunday, the &#8220;Big Beautiful Bill&#8221; is eliminating fraud, waste and abuse that Republicans say is rampant in the program.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What is so hard about having a work requirement there with someone that has no medical conditions and no dependents?&#8221; he said on &#8220;Meet the Press.&#8221; &#8220;We don&#8217;t pay people in this country to be lazy. We want to give them an opportunity. And when they&#8217;re going through a hard time, we want to give them a helping hand. That&#8217;s what Medicaid was designed for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Senate GOP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/29\/senate-slogs-through-megabill-with-final-vote-almost-in-view-00431478\" target=\"_blank\">voted narrowly to move to a general debate<\/a> on the package on Saturday. Final passage could come Monday. But one Republican, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, voted against moving the bill forward due to its Medicaid language.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, too, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/09\/medicaid-realignment-politics-gop-megabill-00393331\" target=\"_blank\">are looking to seize on the cuts<\/a> to win back working class voters who have moved toward Trump since his political rise.<\/p>\n<p>Mullin argued that Republicans are seeking to future-proof the program, refocusing Medicaid on what it was &#8220;designed for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s 35 million people under the poverty line inside the United States,&#8221; Mullin told Welker. &#8220;And there&#8217;s 70 million people that are signed up for Medicaid. You&#8217;re going to tell me that there&#8217;s not room to cut fraud, waste, and abuse in the program?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Markwayne Mullin is insisting President Donald Trump&#8217;s sweeping domestic megabill doesn&#8217;t break his promise not to cut Medicaid, even as the Congressional Budget Office estimates 7.8 million people would lose access if it passes. Instead, Mullin (R-Okla.) told NBC&#8217;s Kristen Welker on Sunday, the &#8220;Big Beautiful Bill&#8221; is eliminating fraud, waste and abuse that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}