well the Murphy administration took another swipe at GOP Congress members who voted in favor of federal legislation that'll slash Medicaid funding hosting a roundt in Representative Chris Smith's district today to highlight how many residents there and around the state could lose their health coverage under the Republican bill murphy previously held a similar event in Congressman Tom Kaine Jr's district now New Jersey stands to lose 3.6 6 billion in annual Medicaid funding and today constituents who will take a hit shared what that loss will mean for them senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan reports governor Murphy convened a roundt of government staff and Medicaid recipients who feared deep cuts to critical health care outlined in the budget bill just approved by the House murphy kept insisting this meeting just focused on people so this is not a political event i want to say that explicitly this is a government event and we're gathered together to try to figure out how to do the right thing but politics did loom large here lakewood's a boom town where many growing families depend on Medicaid the governor delivered frequent and often bitter broadsides about the partisan vote on this Republican budget bill this is it is an incredibly sad decision that they chose to vote for this for the life of me I don't understand how they could given the impact on the lives that this bill will have including folks at this table murphy said New Jersey could lose $3.6 billion nearly a quarter of its Medicaid budget throwing healthc care coverage in peril for some 360,000 people he noted no state could make up all the projected budget cuts roundt participants described the impact lauren Williams's daughter who has bipolar disorder lives in a residential care facility without Medicaid these are unstable children besides if we're not put getting them to the point where they are stable you're now putting mental health unstable teenagers on the street for Andrew McGiddi an advocate with cable pausy Medicaid covers the 247 care he needs to survive while we live in the greatest country in the world we should not have to beg or worry about proper care medicine or health coverage i feel I am more worthy than that these policies are cruel and they force us away from our values this is what Republicans in Congress voted for mcgiddi initially got help with Medicaid coverage from Chris Smith one of the three New Jersey Republican congressmen who joined their party to approve this budget by a single vote and they're lobbying in its defense we are going to have spending cuts but for example in Medicaid we can't hurt those that are in nursing homes the disabled working poor real people our people congressman Jeff Van Drew also argued deeper cuts could spell political trouble for his party and so he supports the president's goals we have to work with a scalpel and not a sledgehammer he does not want a mean bill that hurts people but we also can stop the stupid spending that was going on and there was tons of it congressman Tom Kaine stated "The bill stopped illegal immigrants from stealing taxpayer-funded benefits by rooting out waste fraud and abuse we can ensure that this vital program is there for current and future generations of Americans."

But Murphy called the waste fraud and abuse argument quote dog whistles nobody who voted yes including the three folks in our House delegation can ever say "You know what i just didn't realize this was where it was headed."

The president's big budget bill is headed for some tweaks in the Senate where both sides are arguing for changes and politics is very much in play in Lakewood I'm Brenda Flanigan NJ Spotlight News [Music]