Sen. Ernst on DOGE, Medicaid and More

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pleasure to welcome Nebraska US Senator Jony Ernst, our neighbor
from Wiowa, back to the program.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Senator, good morning, Hey, good morning Gary. Great to be
with you.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Good they have you here. I want to dig into
several items up to begin with, can you give us
a general idea, because you're the head of the DOGE
Caucus and the Senate, what kind of progress is being
made in reducing government bloat in the US Senate.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, it's slow, but it is steady, Gary. So I'm
really excited about the opportunity that we've had to take
ten years worth of my squeal work and really give
it a platform under this Trump administration. And we actually
had a pretty sizable win yesterday. So while it wasn't

(00:46):
through legislation, you know, my work to downsize the real
estate of the federal government, we found out working with
HUD that Housing and Urban Development, they will be moving
their agency out of Washington, d C. They were in
a decrepit old building that was hardly occupied and they

(01:07):
decided to move over across the river into Virginia, which
will allow the federal government now to auction off that
piece of real estate. So they will be consolidating into
another building. And again we're just trying to make the
best use of owned federal property and then eliminate the

(01:29):
properties that we no longer need. So we've got about
seventy seven hundred buildings across the United States that are
barely being used or are vacant, and so I have
a huge push to eliminate that waste in federal government
and of course saving dollars by maintaining the utilities and

(01:49):
the upkeep on those buildings. It's going to be huge
as soon as we can get this accomplished. But number one,
you know already the announcement was made ye yesterday. I
found another number of areas of savings and we're trying
to get some of those into the big beautiful bill,
things like you know, snapping back snap over payments, halting

(02:14):
taxpayer funded union time again, selling off empty government buildings,
stopping unemployment payments for jobless millionaires, and ending welfare for politicians.
So there's a lot that we're working on and we're
actually getting quite a bit of traction, so it's really exciting.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Jony Ernst, Senator from Iowa here, Senator, Medicaid is a
one point seven trillion dollar annual tablets, the most expensive
bill the federal government has. When you combine what the
states are also paying, do you really believe that eight
hundred billion of that is waste, fraud and abuse? And
if not, what gets cut?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, I believe that there is a lot that is waste,
fraud and abuse. And since we have had our DOGE efforts,
the auditors have been able to scrutinize some of the
payments that go out. So there are people all across
the United States, and this is just one of many,
many examples that are actually receiving Medicaid benefits in two

(03:18):
separate states, meaning that they probably live in one state,
but you've got either people assuming their identity using that
in another state, or we have hospitals that continue to
draw down under an individual's Social Security number in separate states.
That's not allowed by Medicaid. So we know we have

(03:39):
a number of working or adults that should be working
but choose not to. And these would be the single adults.
And I need people to understand this. These are single
adults who are not working, who are not disabled, who

(04:00):
do not have minor children. So there's very minimal requirements
that we are asking for in the changes to Medicaid,
very minor changes. We're asking that they work. They either
work a part time job, that they are involved in
training or schooling, or that they volunteer. These are easy

(04:23):
things to achieve, especially if you're volunteering. So we're just
asking that you are an able bodied adult with no
minor children and no disabilities, that you please engage in
your communities in order to receive medicaid.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
They're saying. The opponents are saying, you already have more.
They already, they're already are work requirements.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Well, many states do require. We saw that Iowa just
recently made changes to the work requirement that many don't.
And what happened during COVID the Biden administration is that
they expanded Medicaid and brought many, many more adults onto
the program that are not working. They made it very

(05:10):
easy to come onto the program. But now it's much
more difficult to get those people off of the program.
What we want to do is strengthen Medicaid for those
that are the most vulnerable.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Oh, it was intended for, but the states decide most
of this. Senator Jony Earth, why has that not been
part of the Big Beautiful Bill discussion. The states decide
who gets it, who's eligible, how much nursing homes and
hospitals get reimbursed. The states control all of the metrics here.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, we can control that as well though, and that's
what the push is in the Big Beautiful Bill. We
are setting those standards so states like California and New
York can't have the wiggle room to bring, say, illegal
migrants onto the program. We are going to say no,

(06:01):
no more illegal migrants on the program. So we are
going to set those metrics at the federal level. If
you wish to be reimbursed, you must meet the federal metrics,
not by setting your own, not allowing for the wiggle room.
We have states like Nebraska and Iowa that do it well.

(06:23):
We make sure that those that are the most vulnerable
are the ones that are receiving those dollars and are protected.
What the states have done, especially with the expansion populations.
You will have say a thirty year old male that
is able bodied, that could be working, that is not working,
but the states will get reimbursed nine dollars compared to

(06:47):
a pregnant woman on the Medicaid program, where the federal
government will reimburse at a dollar thirty. That is not
the way we should be handling this. The man that's
getting his expenses reimbursed at nine dollars compared to a
buck thirty for a pregnant woman, we're not protecting the
vulnerable population. We are making it much more rewarding to

(07:12):
have that expansion population on medicaid. So again, we need
to focus the dollars on our children, those that are
the working poor, those that are pregnant mothers, those that
have multiple children. We need to make sure that we're
focusing the dollars on them, not that thirty year old

(07:33):
male that is not disabled, not working, has no children
to care for.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
He just amount of left here. Senator, you're doing some
worker efforting. I hate it when I use efforting as
a verb, but I did. Anyway, you're attempting to address
the supply chain issues. So the critical materials for the
United States are were that we're not dependent on sometimes
hostile foreign governments and in turn boost domestic manufacturing. How likely,

(08:03):
how quickly can that happen?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I think it can happen very very quickly. And I
have a bi partisan bill that is a critical infrastructure
Manufacturing Feasibility Act. We're really trying to get some of
the Democrats to agree. A lot of them agree in principle,
but it is working to make made in America the

(08:27):
norm instead of the exception. And so what the bill does.
It instructs the Department of Commerce to identify critical goods
that we have been importing that can actually be made
domestically and produced in rural areas and in our industrial parks.

(08:48):
And so this really starts with ensuring that our iowm
manufacturers or your Nebraska manufacturers are able to get the
materials they need right here in the United States of
America instead of having to import supplies from halfway around
the world. Senator thanks, we don't need that anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Indeed, thanks so much for the time. Always good to
happy fourth coming up next week, Senator Jony Ernst