Greg Landsman: Budget Choice Is About 'Cutting Health Care Or Cutting Taxes For The Super Wealthy'

At today's House Energy Committee hearing, Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) slammed the GOP budget.

Transcript

00:00The gentleman yields. The gentleman from Ohio is recognized for his opening statement.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chair. The decision here is about cutting health care or cutting taxes for the

00:12super wealthy. That is the assignment. That was the assignment that the president and the speaker

00:17gave to this committee. They said, find 800, 900 trillion dollars, billion dollars,

00:27so that we can fund all of the tax cuts, particularly those for the wealthiest people

00:33in the country. And to do so, and I appreciate the chairman's honesty, he said, we're going to focus

00:40on cutting health care for the people who don't need it as much. Or said differently, we want to

00:49make sure that we're only giving health care to the people who need it the most. Who does not need

00:54health care? Who who who here or in this country doesn't need health care or the speaker saying

01:00it's only going to be for people with, quote unquote, real disabilities? That's what the speaker

01:05said last night. So they're not going to try to figure out how to make this more efficient. What

01:11they're doing is they're going to make decisions about who gets health care, who has real disabilities

01:15based on how much money they can save. Here's how they're cutting. They're going to increase the cost

01:20for low income people to go see a doctor. They're going to have all of this red tape and paperwork

01:27to make it impossible for people who are eligible to get the health care. That's what happened in

01:32Georgia and Arkansas and Alabama. They're going to cut subsidies for folks who are receiving it as part

01:39of the ACA. Five million people are going to lose their health care because of it. They're going to shift

01:44the cost to states and then they're going to sell the stage. You cannot raise money to cover the cost

01:51through an additional provider tax. So they're handing them the ball and then tying both hands

01:57behind their backs. So I have a constituent, Aaliyah, who gets her health care in Ohio. Yes, she may lose

02:06her health care because Ohio can no longer pay for all of the care that she needs. They're going to

02:13end retroactive Medicaid for nursing homes. They're going to reduce the minimum number of nurses in

02:21nursing homes. These are all the ways that they're getting to the savings. Not at all to do with waste,

02:28fraud, and abuse. One of my colleagues said cyber criminals is a big issue. Absolutely cyber criminals

02:33is a big issue. If you go to the GAO reports, they list all of these examples of waste, fraud, and abuse,

02:38none of which is in this bill. None of which is in this bill. All of this waste, fraud, and abuse is

02:44right here. We could take it up, including tackling cyber criminals. Here's the numbers. If you want to

02:53not cut health care for millions of people, take the top wage earners, go from 37 to 39.7 percent,

03:00that's $250 billion. Take the corporate rate tax rate back to 28. That's $1.3 trillion. Add the

03:08minimum, the billionaire minimum tax, that's $500 billion right there. That's $2 trillion. You can

03:15invest it in expanding Medicaid. That is what Americans need. Otherwise, this is morally bankrupt,

03:21politically disastrous, and it will be deadly for those who are going to lose their coverage,

03:25and I yield back. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentlelady from Virginia.