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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just heard the minority leader, once again, come to the U.S. Senate Chamber and cry wolf. This time, it is about Medicaid reform.

Let's be very clear: We need to strengthen Medicaid, and we did that in the bill that we just passed and was signed into law. The minority leader, once again, puts fear above the facts. He is upset. He is upset because Republicans are asking able-bodied adults to work if they want to receive taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits.

He also is upset because Republicans believe that illegal immigrants should not receive Medicaid benefits. Let me set the record straight. Medicaid is for the vulnerable. It was never meant to cover able- bodied, working-aged adults who refuse to work nor was it meant to cover illegal immigrants whom the Democrats continue to embrace. Today, there are over 1.2 million illegal immigrants receiving Medicaid benefits. Today, there are 4.8 million able-bodied, working-aged adults who refuse to work who are on Medicaid. That doesn't strengthen Medicaid. It strains it. It weakens it. It makes it harder for the people who need Medicaid whom Medicaid was designed for. It also wastes taxpayer dollars.

Work requirements are common sense. You know, they used to be bipartisan. Bill Clinton, from the Presiding Officer's home State, signed that into law in the 1990s. President Obama defended it in 2008. President Obama said: Work must be the centerpiece of any social policy. Democrats today don't believe that. They think Clinton was wrong, and they think Obama was wrong. They are for laziness, and they are for illegal immigrants.

The Democrats, today, are defending dependency rather than independency. That is what they are doing today. That is what Chuck Schumer did on the floor of the U.S. Senate this morning.

Republicans believe in a safety net--a safety net to help people reach their full potential, to get back up on their feet. We believe in hard work. We believe in work as part of somebody's identity, their dignity, their self-worth, how they view themselves as role models for their children. If you are healthy and you refuse to work, it is a choice you may want to make, but don't expect the taxpayers to pay for it. No child, no pregnant woman, or disabled person will lose coverage.

What the Democrats want to do is remove work requirements and continue to fund healthcare--Medicaid--for illegal immigrants. That is just not fair to everyone else.

Mr. President, I came to the floor to talk about a different topic, but in listening to the minority leader, I couldn't help myself but to talk about just how far to the left the Democrats have gone, and, oh, it is no surprise that they are at their lowest level ever in the polls. The front page of the Wall Street Journal this weekend shows Democrats at an alltime low in the history of polling in terms of the people who identify with the Democratic Party and who reject the Democratic Party. Only one in three accepts what the Democrats are preaching while 63 percent of the American people do not identify with that at all.

This is no surprise given the Democrats' goal of raising taxes and making illegal immigration easier and continuing to recruit more illegal immigrants to this Nation by offering a lot of free things, which is what the Democrats want to continue to do, but that is not the reason I came to the floor today.

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