This week, President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled his latest budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, which includes elements like massive cuts to Medicaid totaling almost $1 trillion. That proposal serves as the latest insult to those across the U.S. who might be banking on the president’s ultimately completely false promises to protect health coverage for groups like people with pre-existing conditions. At a press conference this Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hammered the president over the proposal, insisting that it’s a feat of hypocrisy that shows his true values lie far away from the American people.
They also insisted that they’d fight the budget plan, which the current Democratic majority in the House gives them great grounds to do.
Pelosi directly rebuffed the idea that the money taken away from Medicaid in the president’s budget proposal will just get reshuffled somewhere else substantively helpful for working Americans. She insisted:
‘This is very important that we have clarity on this subject, because we’re talking about America’s working families. We’re talking about Medicare, which is essential to not only the health but the financial security… To put this in a perspective about what that means to America’s working families — why are they doing this? They’re doing this so that they can give advantages to the high end. We want to see balance in all this… but don’t get in front of an audience and say “I’m here to protect Medicare and Social Security”… and then put a budget like this forward.’
That is exactly the kind of thing that the president has done. He has claimed that he will somehow, somewhere protect people with pre-existing conditions literally while his administration was in court arguing to completely repeal Obamacare, including pre-existing condition protection.
In part quoting Pelosi, Schumer commented this Tuesday:
‘You want to know the values of this president in particular? Don’t listen to the State of the Union address — look at his budget, and it shows his values are so off base. Left to his own devices, he would do this! But we stop him, we fight him. But make no mistake about it, this is just what he wants to do, and the American people should know about it loud and clear.’
Pelosi added:
‘This is really a statement that’s so undermining the values of what America is as a community. What we are about respecting the what the needs are of America’s working families. This is really important, because it’s also about the anti-governance attitude of Republicans… When they say they’re making a cut in education, they’re… undermining the aspirations of the American people and the competitiveness of our country.’
Watch below:
Health coverage is far from the only grounds on which Republicans have staked their fierce partisanship. Led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), they’ve also refused to take bills seriously that are meant to help protect the U.S. elections system. McConnell refuses to bring them to the floor.
Pelosi asked:
‘Why are Republicans so afraid of stopping foreign interference in our elections? Why are Republicans so afraid of protecting the integrity of our elections?’
Well, there’s a fitting reason — they’re the ones benefiting.
