Massachusetts Governor Healey: ‘People Will Die’ With Trump’s Budget

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said "people will die" if President Donald Trump is successful in eliminating waste, fraud and abuse from Medicaid.

Trump's legislation requires able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work at least part-time for their benefits and would also remove the estimated 1.4 million illegal aliens the administration says are collecting benefits to which they are not entitled.

The idea is to make more money available for those who deserve the assistance by taking it from those who are bilking the system and the taxpayers.

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Some Democrats have used similar scare tactics to sway public opinion on an issue they oppose. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently warned "people will die" when discussing Trump's budget proposal. In 2017, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said "hundreds of thousands of people will die" if Trump's health care bill became law.

MassLive reported that Healey stated at a recent news conference in Revere, "This is not, as they would describe it, a scalpel, we've heard that term before, a scalpel to the problem."

"It really is just a blunt-force axe. And it's going to fall on a lot of people here in Massachusetts and a lot of people around this country," Healey said. "People will get hurt and people will die. And it will raise costs for everyone else."

Trump has repeatedly stated he does not intend to cut benefits for those who rely on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

"We're going to get the fraud out of there...and everybody wants us to get the fraud out," Trump told Fox News and others.

Trump advisor Elon Musk says some $500 billion to $700 billion in entitlement program waste, fraud, and abuse must be eliminated.

The Healy administration claims Medicaid reform will cost Massachusetts $1.75 billion over 10 years, affecting 250,000 people statewide.

In February, State House News Service reported the Healey administration predicted that "nearly 2 million Bay Staters are at risk of losing health care coverage under GOP plans for Medicaid."