[AUDIO] McCormick: “The Fact Of The Matter Is Obamacare Expanded Medical Coverage In A Very Bad Way.” “Health care in general, I think needs to be redone. There's a lot of systems out there I think would be much more beneficial. The fact of the matter is Obamacare expanded medical coverage in a very bad way. Yes, more access, but at a higher price point. And actually, it was more priced. It wasn't better access. We could have done it in so many different ways that encourage that the barriers be torn down between states.” [American Potential Podcast, 5/9/25]
[AUDIO] McCormick Believed There Was “An Automatic Increase” In Costs Under “Medicare For All” And Explained Why “Fixed Pricing” Led To Higher Costs. “I'm convinced that Obamacare was a first step to socialized medicine, which is ultimately what they want. They want Medicare for all knowing that it's not going to pay the bill, knowing they'll have an automatic increase. And if it doesn't come into you're just by that. Look at what insurance does and doesn't cover it. If it doesn't cover Lasik surgery, which it doesn't. The original if you to get Lasik eye surgery, it costs about $4,000 about 40 years ago. 40 years. Now we have a competitive process that's less than $1,000 ride. With 40 years of inflation, it's become better and less expensive because it's not paid for by insurance. Now let's make a comparison to car insurance. If you use car insurance to pay your oil change. How expensive would have been if it was frozen in time? $20 for oil change. 40 years ago. How expensive would it be now? You see the difference? It's if it's fixed pricing, it's going have an automatic increase, just like we do with our mandatory spending. Every year it's going to increase because it has to. And it's not going to save any money. It's not competitive. It ruins the competitive nature of making medicine better and cheaper, which is what happens when you don't have insurance companies dictating the prices.” [Tudor Dixon Podcast, 5/7/25]
2020: McCormick Blamed The ACA For Rising Premiums And Bemoaned The “Extra Layers Of Administration” It Created. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Do you support dismantling the Affordable Care Act? If so, what would you replace it with? [...] McCormick: ‘Yes. As an ER doctor, I have witnessed firsthand the frustrations of the ACA. Since the incorporation of this act premiums have continued to rise rapidly and extra layers of administration have been added without addressing the real problem. We need to rethink how to drive the cost down on an incredibly capable healthcare system that just costs too much. We need pricing transparency. We need to make it easier to have choices and a funded HSA that rolls over every year. This would encourage competition and educated choices. Right now no one knows how much anything costs, including drugs, until it is already paid for. The cost of that bill is passed on through premiums and yet most people don't think of it as a real cost. We continue to have surprise billing without a national solution while insurance agencies make tens of billions of dollars in profits each quarter. We need to modify behavior and allow competition to maintain a robust healthcare system with better pricing and accountability of outcomes.’” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/23/20]
2020: In An Answer To A Candidate Survey By Campaign For Liberty, McCormick Stated That He
Supported The Full Repeal Of The ACA. “7. Will you support legislation to fully repeal ObamaCare and oppose efforts to give the federal government more control of health care? […] Rich McCormick, Yes.” [Campaign For Liberty Candidate Survey - Rich McCormick, Accessed 5/9/25]
[VIDEO] McCormick Declared There Was “Fraud, Waste, Abuse For Medicare And Medicaid As Well” And Wanted To “Cut Back On Some Real Wasteful Spending.” “But there's a ton of spending that DOGE has identified that we can get rid of. There's some Medicaid fraud, waste, abuse for Medicare and Medicaid as well. And I think we do a lot to cut back on some real wasteful spending. But I want to lock in those tax cuts.” [FBN: The Bottom Line, 2/28/25]
[VIDEO] McCormick Believed That Medicare And Medicaid Costs Will Come Down With Efficiency And Bemoaned The “Waste” And “Inefficiences.” “We talked about upgrading both the Medicaid and Medicare of people who qualify, who shouldn't qualify. The way we bill, the waste in billing. 25% of every dollar spent in health care is administrative. This is a $5 trillion industry. There is so much we can save by it by being more efficient, so much waste we could cut. So much better we can do with inefficiencies. This is the biggest spending item in government, about 27% of our budget. It's the second biggest spending item in business. We could do so much better, and I'm looking forward to that conversation.” [FBN: The Bottom Line, 2/28/25]
McCormick Warned Of “Hard Decisions” On Social Security, Medicaid, And Medicare And Claimed There Were “Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars To Be Saved, And We Know How To Do It, We Just Have To Have The Stomach To Actually Take Those Challenges On.” According to The Hill, “Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that lawmakers will ultimately face tough choices on spending in next year’s unified GOP government, suggesting cuts may be coming to social welfare programs. ‘We’re going to have to have some hard decisions. We got to bring the Democrats in to talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved, and we know how to do it, we just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on,’ McCormick told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.” [Hill, 12/3/24]
[AUDIO] McCormick Decried “Increased Medicaid Spending” And Claimed That Medicaid “Will Bankrupt America” If Congress Doesn’t “Get A Handle On This” Medicaid Spending. “So, Medicare and Medicaid has to be spent and then they have to afford their own, whether it be through their business or individually. And it's the fastest inflationary cost to Americans too. It’s going way faster, anything else. Second is education, which is another issue you and I are very familiar with. And we've we've actually talked about in the past. But if we don't get a handle on this, it will bankrupt America because it is the biggest cost and Medicaid right now, some of the Medicaid spending we provide as a federal government, 90% of the cost comes from the federal government, it’s supposed to be a state-run contract. Now the state says, well, we have you pay 90%. Do you think they're going to shrink that or expand that? They're going to expand that, of course, because they get all the benefit and none of the cost, well, 10% of the cost. But it makes them look like the good guys that will provide health care to everybody on Medicaid and we'll have the federal government pay for it. And what happened is we went from one third of all government spending was from the federal government. Now it's two thirds and the biggest cost increase under our watch. By the way, we've increased Medicaid spending by almost 25%. That's a problem that if we don't get a handle on this, once again, everybody likes to say we offload our our state programs on the federal because federal can just print the money. Well, the bill is coming due now. And not this presidency. I think this presidency is going to go well. And I think President Trump is going to do some great things” [American Potential Podcast, 5/9/25]
[AUDIO] McCormick Claimed That Health Care Was “The Most Wasteful Spending We Do” And Touted His “Big Ideas” To Reduce Costs. “We've got to get back to neutral. We've got to get on top of this. And health care is the biggest item we spend money on. It's the most wasteful spending we do. And if we don't do something to correct it, we've got to have some big ideas. And we have a lot. By the way, I've been talking to speaker about this. I'm working with the doctor’s caucus and with individual members on some bills I want to really helped spearhead and we'll talk about some of those today. But but that's why health care is so instrumental in the future of America, because it is our biggest spending item fastest inflationary cost to Americans.” [American Potential Podcast, 5/9/25]
[AUDIO] McCormick: “I Know That Everybody's Like, You Can't Cut Medicaid. It's Not Even The Federal Government That We're Supposed To Be Sustaining This With. That Is A Big Part Of Our Problem. Plus, There Is Tons Of Waste, Fraud And Abuse In The Medicaid System.” “The federal government was never meant to take over 90% of spending for Medicaid, which a lot of states now have have mandated that we pay it because the way Obamacare was was designed to expand federal spending. We used to only sustain one third of all government spending. Now we're two thirds. It's reversed. Now states only contributing one third, and they have to balance their budgets, whereas we don't. So that just encourages more deficit spending. It's irresponsible and needs to stop. I know that everybody's like, you can't cut Medicaid. It's not even the federal government that we're supposed to be sustaining this with. That is a big part of our problem. Plus, there is tons of waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid system of billing, false claims, false policies, lack of link of income verification, lack of a work requirement for people who are of age and have no children. It's unbelievable how much waste there is in Medicaid.” [Main Street Matters, 5/2/25]
[AUDIO] McCormick Claimed That The Administrative Costs Were “Over 25% Of Every Dollar Spent” And Proposed “AI Administration” Of Medicaid. “I can tell you. Administrative costs of medicine alone. That's the stuff that doesn't go towards any health care, actual cost. But the administrative cost is over 25% of every dollar spent. So, in a $2 trillion spend by government, that means that you're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars we can save just by making it administratively better. Just do AI administration and also by making sure these huge insurance companies pay their fair share so we don't have to continue to expand Medicaid and make it pay more.” [Joe Pags Show, 3/12/25]
[VIDEO] McCormick Suggested That “We Can Get Rid Of A Lot Of Waste, Fraud, And Abuse Just By AI” And Wanted A “Streamlined” Administration Process. “I mean, everybody says they have a great program that needs to be paid for. There is hundreds of billions of dollars of Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse, in my opinion. We can get rid of a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse just by AI. And the way we streamlined the administration process.” [NewsNation: Cuomo, 2/19/25]
2024: 1,997,710 Georgians Were Enrolled In Medicaid, Including 2 In 5 Children And 5 In 7 Nursing Home Residents. [Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid In Georgia Fact Sheet, August 2024]
2023: Nearly 1.25 Million Georgians, Or 11.4% Of The Population Were Uninsured, Which Was Higher Than The National Average. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “In Georgia, there were 1,219,600 uninsured people in 2023. That’s 11.4% of the state’s population compared to 8.0% of the U.S. population being uninsured.” [Kaiser Family Foundation, accessed 5/12/25]
[VIDEO] McCormick: “We Have To Find Where We Can Cut These, Whether It Be In Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Whatever It Is.” “We have to be more original, and we have to find where we can cut these, whether it be in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, whatever it is, which does 75% of our budget right there. We don't do something. We're in trouble.” [NewsNation: Cuomo, 2/19/25]; 250218_BGO_5079_B
[AUDIO] McCormick Claimed That The Emergency Medical Treatment And Labor Act Was “Abused” By “Illegal Immigrants” Who “Literally Come To Your Hospital And They Have Babies.” “It was to keep us from discriminate against people who couldn't pay their bills. And it's and is a good law in the sense that you don't want people who are impoverished to come to the E.R. and they can't pay their bills. I'm not going to see you, it was to keep that from happening. But it's been abused massively. When you have 10 million plus illegal immigrants come in and literally come to your hospital and they have babies. And however much the cost, you know, $20,000 a pop, 100,000. But what if you had come in preemie, now you're in the NICU. You could have hundreds of thousand dollars for one person's birth. And by the way, now we're on the hook for that child the rest of their lives because their parents just came here because they were impoverished to begin with. So now you're going to be paying for their health care, maybe their preemie, premature health care, all their medical bills, all their education, all their special needs, because they're probably going to have some special needs because they're born preemie.” [Our Health, 2/24/25]