Alex Baumhardt
Oregon Captial Press
EDITOR’S NOTE: Senior reporter Alex Baumhardt recently conducted a wide-ranging 45-minute phone interview with U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, Oregon’s sole Republican in Congress. Baumhardt published an article with highlights. Here, we’re publishing the full transcript, along with annotations.
This transcript begins after Baumhardt asked Bentz about the abrupt departure of the superintendent of Crater Lake National Park.
Rep. Cliff Bentz: I do not have whatever he’s been saying about why he resigned, or the numbers that he says have been reduced. All I have available are the number of folks across the entire scope of the National Park Service. I don’t have the total number of people that work for the National Park Service, but we’ll find that number out. There have been 1,000 roughly laid off. But I don’t know from what group or how many total are left. But what are you hearing?
Alex Baumhardt: I think the Department of Interior data shows between May, I want to say it was May 12, and then the last fiscal year, they’ve seen a 16% drop across the Park Service. And then the National Parks Conservation Alliance had said their impression was a lot of that was from these sort of incentivized early retirements, delayed or, you know, buyouts, essentially people taking the incentivized buyout and then the instruction to not fill vacant positions, right?
Bentz: Well, I don’t have that detail as to the National Park Service, so I’ll find out and see what the situation is.
Baumhardt: Regardless, I guess, of the numbers — if we take seriously the former superintendent’s concerns that staffing is an issue and it was untenable, I guess, what does that raise for you? As you know, it’s one of our biggest parks, it’s in your district, what do you — where did it leave you?
Bentz: Well, first of all, for some reason, it sticks in my mind that they were going to be closing the park down for refurbishment for two years (1). Given this issue has been raised, we will absolutely look into it. The total number of employees, my staff tell me, is 20,000 across the nation, and they were going to reduce it by 1,000 — so that seems a big number — but in relation to the total number working for the department, it’s manageable. I have to see the specific details that you have that I don’t have. The person’s concern may be well founded. It may not. Until I know the facts better. I’m not going to take a position on it, but now that you’ve raised an issue, we’ll look into it.
(1) Crater Lake National Park was not scheduled to be closed for two years. The Cleetwood Cove Trail that leads down to the lake was scheduled to be closed for maintenance for two years.
Baumhardt: So, to begin with, I told Alexia we crowdsourced some questions from readers. I think we got, like, three dozen questions. Obviously, the bulk of them are about the tax bill. Medicaid was a big part of it. But to start, I just wanted to ask, you know, in Oregon, I hear legislators here, often they describe the budget as a statement of values: “We invested $10 million of taxpayer money in this because we want clean water, or we value public schools.” So, when you look at this tax bill that you voted for, what are the values that you and the members of your party are espousing with it? What would you say are the values this bill says?
Bentz: OK, so the most important thing that I was focused on is our economy and making sure that we don’t damage the economy, while at the same time trying to reduce the deficit. Because the deficit has been hugely important to me since the day I got here, and even before that. The focus on our economy is reflected in the tax portion of the bill, which is designed to try to avoid what would happen if we fail to extend the Trump tax cuts, which would be a loss of some 7 million jobs, somewhere between 6 to 7 million jobs (2), and dramatic increases in taxes across the board. But the true damage would be done to the people at the lower end of the spectrum. So my primary concern was the economy. And it is not surprising, having spent 12 years in the Oregon Legislature, that there are economists who do their best to guess at what’s going to happen over the next 10 years — because I saw, I watched our Oregon economists struggle with that issue every year, and of course, they’re never, ever going to get it right, despite their very, very best efforts — and that’s what’s happening with the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO. They are always going to come in, in this particular space with an incredibly conservative guess as to what our economy is going to be doing over the next 10 years. I think they came in at a 1.8% guess. When in point of fact, history shows 2.3% over any 10-year period you want to look at. And I’m not surprised they did that, but it gives everybody a huge talking point saying how the economy is not going to grow. We have studies that indicate that the growth rate could be over 4%.
(2) Those figures come from the Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member, president-appointed agency within the Executive Branch that recommends economic policies
Baumhardt: I want to cut you off. I’m sorry. Just because, I want to get back to the central question, which was values. What does this show Americans about the values you hold?
Bentz: Well it better show that I want them to be able to keep their jobs, and in fact, get jobs. Because we’re going to impose work requirements, which are hugely supported across the nation, I think 72% to 75% want people working if they’re getting free stuff (3). And so, you know what, if they’re going to be working, they better have jobs. And so that means my goal is to support a bill that provides every opportunity for people to get work, because they’re going to need to have jobs. We’re going to need that kind of working approach if we’re going to make this country what it is now and what I hope it will be in the future, which is a successful economic entity. A strong economic entity. That’s one of the most important things. The other is, I want to maintain the essential programs that we absolutely have to have, and that would include Medicaid, of course. It includes Social Security, it includes Medicare. These programs are essential, and we better figure out how to make sure they are serving those for whom they were created, or we’re going to be in deep trouble, and we’ve got way too many people that are absolutely dependent on those programs.
(3) In three separate polls done by Axios-Ipsos, KFF and Paragon between 2023 and 2025 anywhere from 61% to 84% of people polled said they support a work requirement for Medicaid.
Baumhardt: I’m going to stop you there. Because in the absence of hard numbers, I’m not going to go there. I appreciate it, but in the absence of real data about the — and I’ve actually asked for this a few times — I don’t want to speculate on that, but I do want to get to my next question, which is…
Bentz: Stop. Stop. You mean you don’t want to speculate about what?
Baumhardt: I don’t want to speculate about — I asked this in the town hall, and I followed up in an email, and I never got an answer: you’ve given conflicting data about the number of people that are supposedly on Medicaid that are not working, that are fraudulent, that are taking advantage of it, that have an income threshold higher than what’s allowed. And I’ve gotten conflicting numbers, and then I’ve gotten no correction on it. And so, for the sake of time, unless you have very hard numbers, and a very specific source, I don’t want to waste our time on it.
Bentz: OK, well let me give you those numbers. And I’ll give you the source. I’ve got my staff right here, and they’ll provide them. The number of people that were added to the Medicaid rolls since 2021 — we had 1,059,146 folks in Oregon on Medicaid and that grew to 1,139,642 in 2024. And the source of that is… (Bentz turns to staff) do we have it also from the? Do we have the backup? Oh, no? We’ve reached out to the Oregon Health Authority, and not gotten those numbers yet. So these numbers are from Paragon (4). Is that correct? So, we’ll share with you Paragon’s contact info, if you’d like.
(4) Paragon is a conservative health policy think tank.
Baumhardt: OK, so that’s less than 100,000 people that were added.
Bentz: Yeah, the growth rate is 7.6%.
Baumhardt: That were added between 2024 and 2025?
Bentz: Between 2021 and 2024.
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Baumhardt: OK, so what does that say about fraud?
Bentz: Well, so I usually use the word “abuse.” Fraud and abuse — waste, fraud and abuse, anyway — the undocumented immigrant number that is estimated. Again, this is Paragon, Paragon is the source is: in Oregon, roughly 23,800 that are, we think, going to be deemed ineligible by virtue of being on Oregon’s Medicaid program and receiving the federal benefit, not the Oregon benefit.
Baumhardt: But that’s … 23,000 is nowhere near 7%. I’m sorry, that’s — so 100,000 people were added over four years, and you’re talking 23,000 potentially undocumented, or close to 24,000. That still leaves….
Bentz: The number in 2024 is 1,139,000 of that number, it is anticipated that 23,800 are undocumented.
Baumhardt: OK, so if even a quarter of that 7% growth, so 2.5% was from the addition of undocumented people that now have health insurance, that still leaves the bulk of the growth in people who aren’t.
Bentz: So, I don’t know why you’re going on the growth phase. I don’t know why you’re going down that trail, but let me give you the three numbers that are going to be affected in the bill that I voted for. The three that are going to be affected are: the undocumented immigrants, the ineligible recipients that are making too much money or otherwise ineligible for the program, and then the able-bodied adults, those are the three.
Baumhardt: So, I think it’s the latter two there that I don’t have data from you about that keep getting brought up.
Bentz: I’ll give you the ineligible recipient number as we understand it.
Baumhardt: Sure. But then I need a source. And to your point, if we’re going to talk about speculative forecasting, extrapolating expectations based on the data we have — and you’re going to say the Congressional Budget Office is off — if this is anything other than, like, really hard, audited data, I just… I’m not going to … I’m curious. I just want you to know I’m skeptical, especially because we’ve gotten conflicting numbers from you.
Bentz: I’m looking at the CBO pie chart, which we’re more than happy to send you a copy. Of the 7.6 million in total across the United States, and then what we’ve been trying to do is make sure we had a general idea, not specific, but a general idea of the 7.6 million, how many in Oregon….
Baumhardt: What are the 7.6 million?
Bentz: 1.4 million illegal immigrants, 4.8 million able bodied adults choosing not to work, .2 million unrealized — and this is CBO — anticipated growth, and 1.2 million recipients who are ineligible.
Baumhardt: Because of income.
Bentz: Well, I don’t have the definition of ineligible, but I’m guessing that’s what that means.
Baumhardt: OK, so this is CBO saying there are 4.8 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid who are abusing it.
Bentz: 4.8 million able bodied adults choosing not to work (5). With work requirements put in place, they estimate that .8 million people out of the 7.6 will choose not to.
(5) Officials from the Congressional Budget Office have said new work requirements could reduce Medicaid coverage by 5.2 million and increase the uninsured by 4.8 million. Republicans have taken this to mean that those 4.8 million that would lose coverage would lose it because they are currently refusing to work. That is a misleading interpretation.
Baumhardt: OK, so that’s less than half a percentage of all Medicaid users? Is that the best use of, I guess, I’m just wondering, like, is that really where we’re throwing all our bones on saving the taxpayers money? That’s .07% of all people who use Medicaid (6).
(6) 4.8 million is in fact 5% of all Medicaid enrollees. There were 78,444,837 people enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of January 2025. 7.6 million would be about 10% of all enrolled.
Bentz: You probably need me to explain, because I certainly wasn’t aware of it until I started running these numbers — and that is the amount that’s paid on the average for each one of the people in the system. And that number, it’s oddly, maybe not, it’s higher for the Medicaid group than it is for the ACA lower rung — but it’s about $10,000 a year. So, if you take $10,000, times the undocumented immigrant portion of 23,800, please do that — and what is the what is the number? (turns to staff) I’ll get it for you. It’s a surprisingly large number.
Baumhardt: $238 million
Bentz: Just for the undocumented immigrants, that’s a big number.
Baumhardt: So, here’s my question…
Bentz: If you drop down to the ineligible recipients, it’s 20,000 … so that’s, what is that?
Baumhardt: We’re the only industrialized, wealthy nation on earth that negotiates this stuff, in large part….
Bentz: Now wait a minute, I see where this is going. Let me just say one thing. You must believe in law and order.
Baumhardt: I know, but here’s the thing, when you go to a clinic, right — somebody said in your town hall: “Working or not, you get sick. Citizenship or not, you get sick, you’re going to go to a clinic.” When you talk about this costing $10,000 to insure someone — somebody is going to pay. Life and death, you’re going to go to a hospital, you’re going to go to a doctor. And I think what I’m hearing from doctors and medical clinics is: “You’re not saving money. You’re asking us to absorb the costs. We’re not going to turn someone away. And in fact, long term, you’re going to make it so hard for people to get this—”
Bentz: This is supposed to be an interview, not an interrogation or an argument.
Baumhardt: OK, well, then I can move on to my next question.
Bentz: I appreciate your thinking, and I’m very happy you’re focusing on this. But would you like to hear what I have to say?
Baumhardt: Yeah, and then I can move on to the next question.
Bentz: OK, the reason I said you must not be interested, forgive me for putting it that way, but maybe I should phrase it better. People who are not supportive of enforcing the eligibility requirements must think that we should have coverage for everyone, and I think that’s where you were going — that we don’t need to care about whether they’re eligible or not. We just are going to pay regardless of what their circumstance may be when they enter the clinic. That’s your argument. But that’s not the way the law is written right now, before this bill passes. Our law says you have to be eligible for this program. The fact that people have chosen not to enforce that eligibility means they’re allowing people to break the law. Why would we do such a thing? Why would we have these kinds of standards if we’re not going to enforce them? Answer that question, please.
Baumhardt: I think I’ll take a line from you and say: I’m not being interviewed, and this is not an interrogation. So I’ll pass on that for the sake of time, but I appreciate the question, and I will think about it.
Bentz: OK, so one last thing. There were three sets of folks that the CBO acknowledges would not be any longer under the umbrella of the Medicaid system. The first, we’ve talked about, undocumented immigrants. The second, ineligible recipients. The third, able-bodied adults choosing not to work. That’s a big number. In Oregon, it’s about 71,000 people (7) But one thing you should know about that number is the way Oregon is set up, you only get money if those people present at a clinic or a hospital. Otherwise they don’t cost anything for anybody, because they’re not going to the hospital or the clinic. So to say that, that amount of money is somehow going to be dropped out of the system is incorrect. It would only be applicable in that kind of argument, should those people actually go to a clinic. And of the 71,000, roughly 30% would normally go to the clinic (8). So if you’re going to run the numbers to try to figure out what the impact might be on hospitals or other groups, you have to go through these numbers pretty carefully. So now let’s go to the next question.
(7) (8) It is unclear where Bentz got this number.
See more of the Bentz interview next week.