Medicaid 'gamers' are the new 'welfare queens'
Republicans are taking strawman arguments to absurd extremes.
𧏠đ đ With corporate outlets like CBS caving to authoritarianism, supporting independent political media is more important than ever. Public Notice is possible thanks to paid subscribers. If you arenât one already, please click the button below and become one to support our work. 𧏠đ đ
Earlier this month, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a grotesque budget bill that (partially) funds massive tax breaks for the wealthy and a ramped-up ICE goon squad by cutting cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and an additional $185 billion from federal food assistance programs, all while adding $2.8 trillion to the deficit.
Not surprisingly, the bill is massively unpopular. As a result, Republicans are gaslighting Americans about its impact, particularly regarding the cuts to Medicaid, which are expected to cost 10 million Americans their health coverage.
The Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 extra deaths per year, researchers say. Republicans have tried to distract from that reality with a combination of blatant lies and misdirecting rhetoric. To hear them tell it, theyâre only cutting supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. So when you lose benefits, theyâre here to explain why itâs probably your own damn fault.
The lazy gamer myth
Republican messaging surrounding Medicaid cuts borrows heavily from Ronald Reaganâs playbook.
During his first presidential run in 1976, Reagan attacked what he called a âbrokenâ welfare system with shocking stories about abuse and fraud. He described public housing complexes with gyms and swimming pools. Reaganâs stump speech repeatedly mentioned âa woman from Chicagoâ who enjoyed a flamboyant lifestyle on the taxpayerâs dime.
âIn Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,â Reagan said at a 1976 campaign rally. âShe used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veteransâ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.â (Thatâs almost a million dollars in todayâs money.)
A note from Aaron: Enjoying this piece from Stephen? Then please sign up to support our work đ Paid subscribers keep PN free for everyone đ
The âwoman from Chicagoâ who Reagan cited at almost every campaign stop was Linda Taylor, who the Chicago Tribune labeled a âwelfare queen,â a term it used in more than 80 different stories. The Tribune reported that Taylor drove a Cadillac and vacationed in Hawaii. Taylor was in fact an unrepentant grifter, and the New York Times ran a photo of her showing up in court wearing a fur coat. She was eventually convicted in 1977 of welfare fraud, although Reagan vastly inflated the true total of her theft (it was more like $40,000 over several years). Most importantly, Taylor represented a vanishingly small percentage of those who legitimately received government assistance.
Reagan didnât win the 1976 primary, but the damage was done. His cynical picture of indolent wastrels sponging off a corrupted welfare state helped turn blue-collar white voters against the Democratic Party and enabled his later assault on the social safety net.
Flash forward to today, and Republicans are shamelessly spinning these massive Medicaid cuts as only impacting the laziest bums you can imagine. A couple weeks ago, CNNâs Scott Jennings claimed, âThere are like almost five million able-bodied people on Medicaid who simply choose not to work. They spend six hours a day socializing and watching television. And if you can't get off grandma's couch and work, I don't want to pay for your welfare."
The Congressional Budget Office confirms that 4.8 million Medicaid recipients whoâll lose benefits under Trumpâs bill are technically âable-bodied,â but thereâs no evidence they âchooseâ not to work. In fact, the CBO points out that the reason these people might lose benefits is because theyâll struggle to navigate the reporting requirements with the state and become hopelessly entangled in red tape. The âlazy TV watchersâ trope is an insidious lie.
Shortly before the vote for Trumpâs monstrosity, Rep. Andy Ogles told podcaster Benny Johnson, âThe people that are getting off Medicaid are people that shouldn't be on Medicaid to begin with. Itâs the loser in his mama's basement playing video games instead of going out and getting a job.â
Ogles is from Tennessee, where more than 1.5 million people rely on the stateâs Medicaid program. Itâs doubtful even a fraction of that number are perfectly healthy and concerned only with beating their top score on Fortnite. But his repulsive remarks are a Republican mantra.
House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed Trumpâs bill will âreturn the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day.â GOP Majority Whip Tom Emmer posted on social media, âable-bodied individuals who choose to play video games and watch TV rather than work should NOT receive the same Medicaid coverage as single mothers, disabled people, and low-income senior citizens.â GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise proclaimed before the bill was passed that âthe 35-year-old who's sitting in his mom's basement playing video games is gonna have to go get a job again."
Perhaps most absurdly, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins suggested this month that these video-game goof offs could keep their benefits by replacing the critical farm workers Trumpâs ICE gestapo is cruelly deporting.
âWhen you think about there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program, there are plenty of workers in America,â Rollins said.
The âwelfare queenâ demographic that Reagan smeared wasnât considered a likely part of the Republican electorate. Relatively young male âgamers,â on the other hand, represent a demo that has steadily shifted right over the past decade. Republicans are effectively peeing in their own electoral pool.
But Republicans consider it more politically expedient to paint an image of free-riding âable-bodiedâ Medicaid recipients than engage with reality. Data shows that the people theyâre actually talking about are are mostly women over the age of 40 with a high school degree or less. Many are caring for a parent or adult child or spouse living with a disability. Thatâs who will end up suffering from these Medicaid cuts.
Donât let them eat carrot cake
When theyâre not insisting that anybody who loses healthcare as a result of their regressive legislation had it coming, Republicans are telling people with preexisting conditions or illnesses that they need to simply bootstrap their way to healthiness.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, former heart surgeon turned kook talk show host, currently oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Last week, he went on Fox News to âcelebrateâ the 60th anniversary of Medicare. The timing was perverse, considering that Trumpâs bloated bill will kick millions of Americans off the program.
Notably, Oz repeated almost verbatim Scott Jenningsâs line about âable-bodiedâ Medicaid recipients who refuse to work.
âWhen the program was created 60 years ago, it never dawned on anyone that you would take able-bodied individuals who could work and put them on Medicaid,â Oz said on Fox & Friends. âToday the average able-bodied person on Medicaid who doesnât work, they watch 6.1 hours of TV or just hang out. Thatâs not fair. Go out and try to get a job."
Fox & Friends obviously didnât fact check Oz, so here we go: According to independent healthcare researcher KFF, 64 percent of Medicaid recipients under the age of 65 work full or part time. Those who donât arenât all deadbeats â many are students, caretakers, or have an illness or disability themselves. Medicaid recipients donât receive a monthly check. Medicaid pays medical and nursing home bills. Itâs also far more difficult to qualify for it than Republicans would have you believe.
During a appearance later that same day on Stuart Varneyâs Fox Business show, Oz brought a carrot cake â his idea of a healthful option â to commemorate Medicareâs anniversary. But he then cast shade on Americans who eat sweets.
âBe vital, do the most you can do to really live up to your God-given potential, to live a full and healthy life,â he said. âAnd you know, donât eat carrot cake, eat real food.â
Unlike the imaginary meals hungry children might have to settle for thanks to the GOPâs massive cuts to SNAP benefits, carrot cake is âreal food.â But Ozâs callousness reinforces his administrationâs Darwinistic approach to public health.
Oz also said this with a straight face while his boss, Donald Trump, famously lives on a diet of fast food burgers, fried chicken, and pizza. His campaign manager Corey Lewandowski detailed in his book âLet Trump Be Trumpâ that the president would often order from McDonaldâs two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a chocolate milkshake.
Trump famously doesnât exercise, believing the debunked Victorian-era theory that the human body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy. But of course, Trump is wealthy and entitled so he doesnât have to meet the rigid standards Oz expects from the poor.
Oz told Varney, âWeâre all in it together Stuart, which means weâll be there for you, the American people, when you need help with Medicaid and Medicare, but you got to stay healthy as well.â But the point of healthcare coverage is that itâs supposed to help you when youâre sick, not only be available to those who do everything they can to avoid seeing a doctor altogether.
Ever since Reaganâs âwelfare queensâ smear took hold, Republicans have consistently presented poverty as a moral failing, but now theyâve extended it to physical health. Medicaid recipients are somehow simultaneously too lazy and/or sick to deserve care.
Republicans, however, donât let facts and even basic decency get in the way of their messaging strategy. They recognize that people will feel pain from their terrible bill, so they are preemptively slandering their future victims. Itâs low even for the party of Trump.
Thatâs it for today
Weâll be back with more tomorrow. If you appreciate todayâs newsletter, please do your part to keep Public Notice free by signing up for a paid subscription.
Thanks for reading, and for your support.
They are using the language of abusers who aim to demean their victims and lower their self-esteem.
Infuriating how these demeaning false myths keep perpetuating⌠sad because it hits the grievance âgâ spot so well