Speaker Johnson Lays Out How and Why Illegal Aliens Were Getting Medicaid, and What Was Done About It

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had a brief conversation with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on the matter of how illegal aliens in the United States were, in fact, receiving Medicaid - along with what was done about it, and precisely how Democrats want to undo that, so illegals can start receiving these taxpayer-funded benefits again.

George Stephanopoulos is not a journalist.

This was not a news interview it was in-kind service for the DNC.@disney, you have a problem. @WeAreSinclair, @NXSTMediaGroup, so do you. pic.twitter.com/SALqSDUCZ4
— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) October 1, 2025

Mr. Stephanopoulos, who we should all remember is a Clinton creature, made this point:

Here are the facts. The proposal does not provide healthcare for illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants cannot buy healthcare under the Affordable Air... uh, Care Act. They cannot receive healthcare subsidies. Illegal immigrants are ineligible for Medicare, Medicaid, and the children's health program. The Democratic bill does not make them eligible.

The Speaker responded with a Reagan-esque "There you go again" retort:

It does, actually. Because what it does, it unwinds the changes that Republicans put into the Big, Beautiful Bill, that signature legislation that we passed and signed into law last July 4th, that has been very successful in shoring up Medicaid for the people who are actually eligible to receive it. What we did in the bill, and the CBO just verified this three weeks ago, the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan arbiters of everything up here, they said that those provisions have helped to reduce premiums. Why? Because we got ineligible recipients off of Medicaid. Illegal aliens and able-bodied young men who were riding the wagon, who were not eligible to be there. Medicaid is intended for specific populations of U.S. citizens. That is young, pregnant women, who are down on their luck, the disabled and the elderly, those resources were being drained from those folks, and so we fixed that. We reduced fraud, waste, and abuse in the program. Chuck Schumer's counter-proposal on the CR would reverse that. That is a simple fact.

At this point, George Stephanopoulos just issued an unsupported denial of what the Speaker had just explained, and snapped, "You made your point."

Indeed, Mr. Stephanopoulos, the Speaker did make his point; it's just too bad that it sailed over your head.

Watch: Rare Hilarious Moment on CNN When Senate Minority Leader Gets Owned Over Schumer Shutdown

The Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate report on the Big, Beautiful Bill's Medicaid provisions, dated June 24th, 2025, which you can see in its entirety here, says in part:

CBO estimates that enacting the Medicaid provisions in title IV would increase the number of people without health insurance by 7.8 million in 2034 relative to baseline projections under current law.
1 Of that number:
About 4.8 million would be able-bodied adults between the ages of 19 and 64 who have no dependents and who do not meet the community engagement requirement in section 44141 for participating in work-related activities at least 80 hours a month.
About 1.4 million would be people who do not meet citizenship and immigration status requirements for Medicaid enrollment but who would be covered under current law in programs funded by the states.
About 2.2 million would become uninsured because of other provisions in H.R. 1, including provisions increasing the frequency of verification of eligibility to enroll in Medicaid or those that would lead states to change their Medicaid enrollment requirements in response to federal policy changes.
CBO estimates that the interactions among the policies would, on net, reduce the number of people without health insurance by 600,000 in 2034 relative to the sum of the estimated effects of the individual policies because some people would become uninsured under more than one policy.

In other words, the CBO estimates that the Big, Beautiful Bill - now law - would eliminate from the Medicaid rolls 4.8 million who are ineligible due to being young, able-bodied, with no dependents. It also estimates that the BBB would eliminate 1.4 million from the Medicaid rolls who do not meet citizenship and immigration status requirements. As in, illegal aliens - 1.4 million of them. These people may have been on the Medicaid program illegally, but on it they were. Now Democrats want to roll back the very BBB provisions that took them off.

Speaker Johnson is correct in his claim. This supposed newsman, George Stephanopoulos, the Clinton creature, is once again, sadly and catastrophically wrong.

Mr. Speaker, you're doing great. Stick to your guns, and stick to the facts. The American taxpayers are counting on you.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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