In a video released on social media Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about undocumented immigrants and Medicaid.
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00:00So first and foremost, on Tuesday, well, like about a month ago or so, Republicans put budget instructions on the floor of the House.
00:10And they voted to direct the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion from their budget.
00:22Now, when you look at the numbers, and given some of the guidelines and parameters that they put down,
00:30the lion's share of that $880 billion is going to be cut from Medicaid.
00:39Medicaid is one of the largest, if not the largest health insurer in the United States of America.
00:48Out of every five Americans, one is covered by Medicaid.
00:53So one in five Americans is covered in whole or in part by Medicaid.
00:59So we are talking about one of the largest blows to health care in the United States.
01:04And they want to do that because they need to cut $880 billion from Medicaid in order to pay for and finance their tax cuts for billionaires.
01:18So that's the board that we've got going on right now.
01:24Now, someone said Medicaid is for Americans only.
01:28That's correct.
01:29Anyone that's telling you that there's all this stuff happening in Medicaid is largely lying to you, to be honest with you.
01:38In fact, undocumented people, let me just start off with that piece.
01:42Undocumented people pay billions of dollars in federal taxes to help finance programs that they are ineligible for.
01:52Okay, so anyone who tells you that undocumented people are all getting Medicare and all this other stuff, that's simply not true.
02:01It's just not true.
02:02They pay taxes.
02:04They may pay for your Medicaid, but they're not paying for their own Medicaid.
02:09I'll tell you that much.
02:09Now, here's the thing, and that's the first distraction, number one, right, is trying to get you to cut your own health insurance because they've got, because they're trying to get people all twisted up into believing that their health care is,
02:31and that the problems in this country is their neighbor instead of the actual billionaires that are literally putting everything in motion to steal your health care to pay for their tax cuts.
02:43So don't fall for the rope-a-dope, okay?
02:47That's what's happening here.