MSNBC host ridiculously claims Medicaid recipients only have “paper insurance”

Hugh Hewitt: “Medicaid is paper insurance that isn’t actually health care”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt, a right-wing radio host and Trump apologist who was bizarrely rewarded by the network last month with his own weekend show, used an appearance on the July 24 edition of MSNBC Live to push the absurd claim that Medicaid is just “paper insurance” for many recipients and “isn't actually health care.” Hewitt’s disparagement of the Medicaid program came just moments after President Donald Trump concluded an anti-Obamacare tirade at the White House, in which Trump pressured undecided Republican senators to support the GOP’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Right-wing media figures routinely criticise the Medicaid program and its recipients while promoting Republican plans to gut the program. Hewitt’s critique of the supposedly low quality of Medicaid coverage has become more prevalent among Trump-aligned pundits in recent weeks despite it having been discredited years ago. From the July 24 segment:

ALI VELSHI (HOST): Frankly, the stuff that Donald Trump said, you and I have discussed this many times, he does say a lot of things that just aren’t true about Obamacare. He is focused on the Obamacare exchanges and the difficulties that they have had, which we have outlined on this show. They are absolutely very real, many Americans have seen their premiums go up. But carrying on about how it’s broken, and it’s all a mess, and it’s-- everything is a lie, and it’s all a failure, and the whole thing is destroyed. It’s disingenuous, and it’s not going to work for [Sen. Shelley Moore] Capito [(R-WV)], and [Sen. Lisa] Murkowski [(R-AK)], and [Sen. Susan] Collins [(R-ME)], and [Sen. Dean] Heller [(R-NV)].

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VELSHI: More Americans benefitted from the Medicaid expansion than the Obamacare markets, that’s the part that the president never talks about.

HUGH HEWITT: It depends on what you define as “benefitted” from Medicaid. There are a lot of people -- and I was a local health administration for a number of years -- who believe that Medicaid is paper insurance that isn’t actually health care. It does work for a lot of people, it doesn’t do anything for many people.