00:00Next question.
00:06Mr. Vice President, Greg Blustein with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
00:12Thanks for being here.
00:13I have a follow-up to Richard's great question on those health care funding cuts.
00:18There are Georgia Republican leaders who are legitimately concerned that more than 100,000 people could be knocked off the Medicaid rolls,
00:26not just people who are here undocumented or illegally, but people who are working class, who are struggling to get their health care.
00:32What message do you have for state Republican leaders on what they should do to reconcile those issues?
00:37Well, the first thing I'd say is to state Republican leaders and, frankly, state Democratic leaders,
00:41if you're worried about American citizens losing access to health care, the Trump administration always has an open-door policy.
00:49And we've worked with a number of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, at the federal legislature but also at the state level
00:55to make it possible to ensure that American citizens have access to the medical benefits that they need.
01:01It's as simple as that.
01:02So you're always going to have an open door.
01:04Now, we understand that reforms are complicated.
01:06Sometimes this stuff takes time to work itself through the system.
01:10Many of the changes in the working families' tax cuts to Medicaid, you're not going to see that stuff.
01:18Some of it doesn't even go to effect for six or seven years, in part because we want to give enough time to work with people
01:25to make sure that American citizens do not lose access to those critical benefits.
01:29So if you look at the way we design the law, if you look at the way that those reforms are implemented,
01:35and if you look at all the other things that we're doing, we want to work with people to make sure that American citizens get what they're entitled to.
01:42What we do not want is people who have no legal right to be here to benefit from the generosity of the American taxpayer
01:49and to bankrupt those programs.
01:51So long as you're willing to work with us on those goals, we'll work with anybody,
01:54whether you've got a D or an R next to your name, because we care about this country.
01:57We want to make sure it's secure and healthy.
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