Transcript
Joy Reid (0:01)
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Elizabeth Booker (0:44)
Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. Happy Monday, everyone. Happy. Obviously it's a loaded term in this strange time period that we live in, but I'm sure over the weekend you all noticed this ultra expensive 52 million dollar wedding in the beautiful city of Venice. I was in Venice when I was a teenager. Gorgeous city which did not want this wedding. It is billionaire Jeff Bezos. These I believe he's the second richest man in the world marrying a woman named Lauren Sanchez, who is a bon vivant. I'm not sure what her career was before she dated a lot of really famous men and then she married Jeff Bezos. But they had this big, very elaborate wedding full of all the stars. We're talking Usher was in the house. Oprah, she was there as well. Many Kardashians in attendance. Multiple Kardashians with fresh new faces they had surgically enhanced to make themselves even more Kardashian. Y of course, Ivanka Trump also in the house there to witness the nuptials of the billionaire. It was a lavish event that was definitely, it spoke of a gilded age moment in American history. And we definitely are in something of a pretty wild gilded age because everyone that you saw at that wedding, all of those very, very famous people with all of their finery and all of their designer gowns that probably cost more than, you know, maybe your house and jewelry, you know, be decked, all the good stuff on their yacht. And again, in a town that did not want them, they did not want this wedding. There were literal signs up all over Venice saying, we don't want Jeff Bezos. We don't need billionaires here. We don't want them here. Didn't matter. Beatles was like, I'm a billionaire, I can go where I want. Went and had his wedding. Brought all his rich celebrity friends to toast him. Gail and Oprah, they didn't just get, get over, they got over. And Gail, all the big celebs were there. Everyone that you saw on that yacht, I think they had a pajama party to go with it. Big, very expensive 52 million dollar wedding. I think a 10 million dollar ring, I think just Lauren Sanchez's ring was 10 million dollars more than most Americans will ever earn in their lifetimes. Every single person on that yacht, at that party, at that wedding will be getting a tax cut. A giant, permanent, humongous tax cut that you're probably not going to get. The Senate right now is in what's, is in a mega vote. They're in a, they're in a, they're in a giant vote where they're going to vote. It's called a votorama. If you're not familiar with sort of Senate procedure, Votorama means they're going to start debate on amendments and discussing and reading the bill on the floor. This is like a, you know, very, very large bill, hundreds and hundreds of pages. They've got to read the bill on the floor, they've got to vote on amendments. They call it a votorama, where they're going to decide if they are going to pass this bill, which Donald Trump wants to sign on Independence Day on July 4. It is what he calls his big, beautiful bill, but it's really, there's Nothing this big $3 trillion debt hole that it's going to blow into our debt. 3 trillion dollar hole is going to blow into our debt. The overall cost of the bill is north of that and it's going to give a permanent deep tax cut, which essentially is just extending the tax cut that Donald Trump passed in 2017, the vast majority of which went to the super rich billionaires and multi, multi, multi, multi millionaires got the vast majority of that tax cut. They're going to make that tax cut permanent. Now, please remember that I told you back in the day when I was in MSNBC world, I kept trying to tell folks and I told people on socials that the main point of the previous election was not all the other stuff that Donald Trump was saying, no tax on tips. All of that other stuff he was saying that was just the ornaments, the tree, the, you know, that was the, that was the side dish, the main event, the main meal in that election. And the main thing that rich people were thinking about was that tax cut. We're still living under that tax cut right now. I don't know how much you're benefiting, but if you don't think the economy's working for you, we're living under that tax cut regime right now. But they want to make it permanent. And making it permanent is going to cost the United States. Debt is going to cost your grandchildren like $4 trillion. But in order to fit that tax cut in and make that tax cut happen, they've got to find some pay for somewhere, right? They got to find somebody to pay for it. And they decided the perfect person to pay for it are broke people, poor people. They're going to gut Medicaid all over the country in order to pay for this tax cut. They're going to make poor people pay for the people on that yacht at Bezos's wedding to get a massive tax cut. Poor folks are going to pay for it. I'm going to read to you some stuff now. I'm not going to show it on the screen, but I promise you, you can read it yourself. I'm going to put the links up and we're going to, we're going to take down any paywall so that everyone can read it. This will be a no paywall post@joyanreid.com after this broadcast is over. We're going to put it up so that you can read it for yourself, so that you can understand exactly what is, is about to happen. Because in some form, they're going to pass this bill. This bill did pass in the House, a version of it. It's gone to the Senate where they're going to make changes to it. And then just like the Obamacare and all sorts of other bills, it goes back to the House for them to pass it again. That's when a bill becomes law. The House proposes it because it has to do with, you know, with, with the fiscal health of the United States. Anything to do with spending money starts in the House. Then they pass the bill. They already passed it, barely. Then it comes to the Senate. Then once they do all their amendments and pass it, it goes back to the House for final passage. Donald Trump wants all of that done so he can sign the bill on July 4th. But here's what they're going to do to pay for that. To, to pay for it. You're going to pay for it. This is the center for On Budget and Policy Priorities. It's a really great organization that just crunches numbers. They're not partisan. They just crunch numbers. Senate reconciliation amendment and that is meaning the bill that they're going to pull together would cut hundreds of billions of dollars more from state Medicaid funding and put coverage at risk for millions of people. The federal government right now pays 90% of the cost of covering Medicaid enrollees who gained coverage through the expansion called Obamacare. Obamacare, in case you didn't know, is Medicaid. Most of what Obamacare in is, is, is expanded Medicaid. So if you are on expanded Medicaid, if You're on Obamacare. In most of these states, you are either on a private exchange where you can go on and purchase private health care, or you are on expanded Medicaid and they call it various things. Let me just read through this before and then I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that. The federal government right now pays 90% of the cost of covering Medicaid enrollees who gained coverage through the expansion, called Obamacare. Under the proposal, the 90% matching rate would be reduced to the state's regular matching rates, which range from 50 to 74% in expansion states. An expansion would be made for the costs of covering people already enrolled in the expansion group, which would continue to be covered at the 90% match rate. That's a very complicated way of saying they're going to stop matching the money that the federal government currently gives to states so that they can enroll people in expanded Medicaid, AKA Obamacare. So let me just explain to you just really quickly before we bring in our guests, because I think a lot of people don't understand kind of what Medicaid is basically, if you think about health care insurance, what health care insurance is basically equivalent to is if you go on a group trip, let's say you go on a family group vacation and you would normally like to stay in a really fancy, expensive hotel and on your own, that hotel room would cost you a lot of money. Right? It'd be expensive to stay in expensive hotel. But if you go on a family group trip, the hotel will give you a block rate, meaning that they will reduce the price of each room because you're promising them 20 or 30 or 50 or 70 or 100 guests that will all stay in the hotel during that, that time period. When you are having your family vacation, you get a cheaper rate on each room because you're all buying the rooms together. That's basically how insurance works. If lots and lots of people are in the coverage pool, everybody pays less because everybody's chipping in. And Medicaid is essentially a version of that for health care. It is not Medicare, which is part of the Social Security act, where senior citizens, when they reach 65, automatically get health coverage at a reduced rate, which can be reduced because all the seniors are in it. All the seniors over 65 are all in the pool. So all the seniors are like they're taking one big group family, old people vacation. And so Medicare is cheaper and they get cheaper health care because they're all in the group. That's how Medicare works. But when Medicaid was created, there was a huge objection for doing that for poor people. They didn't mind doing it for seniors. They actually didn't want to do either one. Ronald Reagan was like, both of these are an abomination or socialism. But they resisted doing it for poor people. And the way that Medicaid was passed is separate from Medicare. Medicare and Social Security are part of the same law. The Social Security act is part. Medicare is part of that. Medicaid is separate. Medicaid is a block grant, meaning the federal government takes this tax money and sends it to each state based on their population. And then that state administers health care for poor people. But it used to be you had to be really, really poor to get Medicaid. What Obamacare did is it added, it lifted up the cap and it said that if you made a little more money, you can get Medicaid, too. And each state named that thing a different thing. So if Jason could pull up here, we've got. What is Obamacare called in each state? Do we have that or we may not have it. So if you're in Connect, if you're in, let's say, Kentucky, for instance, your version of Obamacare is called Connect. It's still Medicaid, it's still Obamacare, but it has its own name. I don't know if we're going to have this list here, but each state has its own version of it. If you're in Wisconsin, your version of Obamacare is called Badger Care. You may not know that that's Medicaid, but that is expanded Medicaid. It's just called Badger Care. If you live in the state of Tennessee, it's called Tenncare. So you've got Tenncare. If you're in Texas, you've got Star Plus. Of course, they call it Star plus because it's Texas. If you're in Oregon, they call it Oregon Health Plan Ohr. But in each of these states, and it's up on your screen, each state calls their Medicare, their, their Medicaid, their expanded Medicaid, their Obamacare something else. Because by, to be honest, this was a way to get Republicans accepted because they didn't want to do Obamacare. They really didn't want to do it at all. But in order to sneak it through, Andy Bashir, his father, was smart enough to say, let's just call it Connect. Then people will know it's Obamacare and they'll accept it. They're going to cut that. They're going to. Instead and what the federal government does is they reimburse states for the money that they spend covering poor folks. And they reimburse them for 90% of those costs, which means a state can afford to cover the poor people in their state because they're getting 90% of the money back from the feds. What this bill would do is to reduce that reimbursement, which is going to make it really hard for states, especially poor states, to cover poor folks. Hopefully I'm explaining that correctly. But this is all about that family trip where you're trying to get a cheaper rate for health care, which seniors get from Medicare and poor folks get from Medicaid. They want to cut that because they want to find money to use to fill in the gaps that are going to be left by giving rich folks that big tax cut. They're giving them such a humongous. They're not adding a new tax cut. This is the tax cut that already existed, but making it permanent. When you do the balance sheet, when we balance our books as a country, it leaves us like $3 trillion in the hole. And they're going to do it by cutting things that help poor people. Head Start, Meals on Wheels, Medicaid, if you're with, if you're on any of those programs, if you use any of those programs, even if you don't think you do because you're on Obamacare. They're going to cut the things you need in order to afford to give Jeff Bezos and all of his guests at that wedding a massive permanent tax cut. Permanent meaning it's not going to come up again for another vote in 10 years the way this one did. It will just sit on the books and sit on our balance sheet for the rest of time. And your grandkids will be paying for it while they get less health care, while they maybe don't get food stamps. School lunches are going to be cut. They're going to make children go hungry so they can give this tax cut to Jeff Bezos. And friends. This is why we're calling it the big billionaire tax cut. It is a big billionaire bill. I guess it's four billionaires. It isn't for you. And let me play for you now. And you know, don't take it from me. I am a mere lifelong Democrat liberal. Well, I mean, I'm barely a Democrat right now, but liberal. So don't take it from me. I want you all to listen to Thom Tillis. Thom Tillis is the very conservative, right wing United States senator from the state of North Carolina. Thom Tillis is not going to run for reelection in the state of North Carolina.