On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson set the record straight in a quick exchange with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, confirming what Democrats and their media allies would rather Americans not hear: illegal aliens are indeed getting access to Medicaid.
The Louisiana Republican laid out what Republicans have done to stop it—and just as importantly, how Democrats are now scheming to roll those reforms back so illegals can once again tap into taxpayer-funded benefits.
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 matter-of-factly fact-checked Stephanopoulos who has spent his decades at ABC’s morning show not as a journalist but as a shill for the Democratic Party:
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.
WATCH:
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
At that point, Stephanopoulos did what he usually does when confronted with facts that don’t fit the narrative—he waved it off with a baseless denial and curtly snapped, “You made your point.”
Yes, Stephanopoulos, the Speaker did make his point. It’s just unfortunate that it went right over your head. The Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate on the Big, Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid provisions—dated June 24, 2025—spells it out clearly. Here’s what it 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.
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.
Put plainly, the CBO estimated that the Big, Beautiful Bill—now signed into law—would remove 4.8 million people from Medicaid who were never eligible in the first place because they were young, able-bodied, and without dependents. On top of that, it projected that another 1.4 million would be cut because they failed to meet citizenship and immigration status requirements. In other words—illegal aliens.
Now Democrats want to undo those provisions, effectively reopening the Medicaid rolls to people who have no right to be on them. Speaker Johnson is absolutely correct in his claim. George Stephanopoulos—ever the Clinton loyalist—is, once again, catastrophically wrong.
