Valadao Gaslights Constituents after Tearing Away Their Health Care: “No Excuse Not to Get Off the Couch”

In a callous new interview, Valadao falsely claimed “no one is taking away coverage” while dismissing struggling Central Valley families as people with “no excuse not to get off the couch.” He even admitted that “the health care component, I know, is a vulnerability” and brushed off concerns with “it’s just politics and what it is” and “it’s not too much to ask.”

Valadao – whose district has the most Medicaid recipients of any House Republican – has already been called one of the “biggest flip floppers” on his support for the bill and slammed for his “empty vows to protect Medicaid.”

Now he’s gone a step further: insulting his own district while serving as a mouthpiece for D.C. Republicans’ reckless agenda to rip health care away from Central Valley families.

• JACOB CLARK: Upwards of 60% of the people who live in your district are…dependent on either Medicaid or Medicare, and with the recent Big, Beautiful Bill that could be put into jeopardy. You voted yes on that bill. So I’m curious to know why?
• DAVID VALADAO: …As far as the healthcare component, [it] seems to be the biggest part of the conversation. I mean, you said it yourself ‘could’…if you have no excuse not to get off the couch and be involved in your community and get a job, obviously your benefits could be at risk. 
• CLARK: How can people who are looking at their health care plans and are scared to lose their coverage – what can they do to better either cover themselves or to better understand why their coverage is being taken away?
• VALADAO: So one, you’re saying why their coverage is being taken away. No one is taking away coverage… the state of California has the power to make the decisions on those requirements and what mechanisms they’ll put in place…the federal government isn’t going to go out and do that for 300 million people across the country.
• CLARK: The issue of health care coverage is, like you said, maybe the Democrats’ largest talking point in this election…and that’s because people out there really, truly are worried about what the future of their coverage looks like. So to people in the community here who see this news, who are worried about what’s going to happen to their coverage and if they’re going to be affected – what would you say to them?
• VALADAO: …As far as the folks that are out there criticizing, I mean, they’re always going to criticize it. [If] it’s not this, it’s something else, and it’s just politics and what it is.
• CLARK: Do you think that the policies that the Trump administration are currently pursuing reflect the values and beliefs of what people here in Kern County are looking for in their government?
• VALADAO: …The health care component, I know, is a vulnerability…but the…idea [that] there are people at home who have no excuse not to at least make an effort to get a job, volunteer [in] their community or go to school, is pretty frustrating, and we need people to find a way to be productive citizens in our Valley.
• CLARK: To those people…who might not count as ‘productive citizens’, who still believe that they deserve health care, who [are] still…looking for that coverage. What alternatives would you present to them?
• VALADAO: …Putting in a little bit of time every week is not too much to ask.

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