Republicans are committed to trillions in federal spending cuts, and Medicaid is appearing as a large target. However, Gimenez assured that he has no intention to cut benefits. He said there are some other costs that “we all agree on.”
“You shouldn’t have illegal immigrants being paid, have Medicaid, so there are things we can save money on,” Gimenez said on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria Bartiromo. “Work provisions, people that are capable of working from the ages, I believe, 18 to 54, there’s no work provisions right now. I think we can agree on that, and that saves money. But as far as the actual benefits to people that are eligible for those benefits, I don’t think that those are going to be touched whatsoever and so we will have a debate around the edges like we just had between my two colleagues, Scott and Lawler, and then we’re going to end up with somewhere in the middle where we can agree to.”
The Florida representative was referring to Reps. Austin Scott (R-GA) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) disagreeing on the exact federal share of Medicaid. The federal government currently pays for at least 50% of each state’s Medicaid expenses, but Scott proposes a 45% share. Lawler referred to New York as a “donor state,” as it pays more taxes into the federal government than it receives in federal assistance.
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“Failure is not an option,” Gimenez said. “We’re going to get there. We’ll have the debate about where we’re going to land, but we’re going to land. There’s no doubt about that.”
The latest continuing resolution on the budget froze federal funding until Sept. 30.
