(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Colorado Congressman Jeff Crank is reassuring people in his district that cuts to Medicaid will not be on the table for Republicans in Congress.

While he does say cuts are not a concern, Crank said he does believe there need to be more regulations applied to the program. The lawmaker who represents Colorado Springs wants to put safeguards in place to stop undocumented immigrants from enrolling in Medicaid, and stop Medicaid fraud.

Crank helped advance a budget plan that includes a $4.5 trillion tax cut that critics say benefits the wealthy, and that Democrats like Governor Jared Polis say lays the ground work to slash billions from Medicaid and SNAP.

Congressman Crank said in an interview with FOX21 News that some of that kind of talk is scare tactics, in his opinion.

“I think there’s groups out there that are trying to scare people, frankly for their own political purposes, to try and scare people into believing that there’s going to be all these massive Medicaid cuts,” said Crank. “And that hasn’t been the case, that’s not the intention of anybody here, is to cut people off of Medicaid.”

Data shows 19% of Crank’s 5th Congressional District are enrolled in Medicaid, which is below the national average of 22%.

And while Crank said there have been no specific cuts to Medicaid or Medicare that have been voted on, there are still areas for improvement where spending could be trimmed in order to ensure Medicaid funding is accurately directed to those who need it.

“There’s a law that allows people to stay on Medicaid for 89 days before they have to show any proof of citizenship,” said Crank. “People who aren’t citizens of the United States aren’t eligible for Medicaid. So shouldn’t we, as a society, try and not have people like that taking money from Medicaid, so that we can serve the people who are eligible… so I would make the argument that a lot of what’s being done right now is to preserve these programs.”

Crank stressed that any cuts he would support would be strictly to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse of necessary services.