Mike Lawler Caught “Flat Out Lying” About Medicaid Cuts…Again.

Rolling Stone: It’s a fancy way of saying that 4.8 million people would be forced out of the program

You truly can’t believe a word Mike Lawler says. For months, Lawler repeatedly promised his constituents that he wouldn’t support any legislation that included Medicaid cuts. Yet Lawler was quick to cast the deciding YES vote last month when the GOP tax scam that includes nearly $700 billion in cuts to Medicaid came to the House floor.

But that’s not all. After voting to rip away Medicaid coverage from nearly 30,000 of his own constituents, Mike Lawler lied again to NY-17 families, saying that he’s working to “strengthen” and “protect” the critical program.

But don’t just take it from us:

Rolling Stone: Republicans Are Flat-Out Lying About Their Medicaid Cuts

• As President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” heads to the Senate, Republicans are trying their hardest to sell voters on the prospect of deep cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs in order to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.
• The process has involved plenty of bold-faced lying to constituents.
• Republicans’ current reconciliation bill will kick an estimated 15 million Americans off of their health care coverage by 2034.
• In reality, the bill cuts spending on Medicaid by at least $600 billion over the next 10 years. What Republicans say are measures to curb “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the program are largely administrative hurdles intended to bog down potential recipients in paperwork and red tape in order to complicate enrollment in the programs.
• As members of the GOP move to market the legislative package to constituents, their unified message has been that the legislation somehow protects Medicaid, and that any American who loses their health care coverage doesn’t deserve it, and even that they would only be giving it up voluntarily.
• Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told the New York Post last month that the bill “worked to protect critical services like Medicaid,” while eliminating those who were “gaming the system.” 
• In a separate tweet, Lawler wrote that the reconciliation package “strengthens Medicaid for seniors, single parents, and the I/DD community by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,” by eliminating coverage for “illegal immigrants” (who were already ineligible for most Medicaid programs), eliminating “scam artists” from the program, and instituting “work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents.”
• What Republicans like Lawler avoid acknowledging is that the vast majority of able-bodied adults on Medicaid already do work. Over 60 percent of recipients work either full or part time, where as the remainder largely do not work because they are disabled, ill, a primary caregiver, or a student.
• It’s a fancy way of saying that 4.8 million people would be forced out of the program, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

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