With Donald Trump's health care bill sitting in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives last month, critics have piled on the plan in question. While the White House does their best to defend what is now known as "Trumpcare," Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway had hard time doing just that during a recent interview.
Conway on Trumpcare
The debate over health care in the United States has been one that has not slowed down over the last decade.
Following the election of Barack Obama back in 2008, the former president was quick sign the Affordable Care Act, later dubbed "Obamacare," into law in January 2010. The law quickly became the most partisan piece of legislation that would be signed by Obama, with Democrats sticking up for the health care changes, and Republicans doing everything in their power to delete it from the record books. During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was able to highlight the negative aspects of the law and, in part, rally behind the anger of many on the political right. In the months since Trump was elected and sworn into office, health care has often taken center stage, which reached a peak last month when Trumpcare was able to pass through the House of Representatives.
After the Senate version was revealed to the public last week, backlash quickly followed. In an attempt to defend the bill, Kellyanne Conway appeared on the June 25 edition of ABC's "The Week."
Joining host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning was Kellyanne Conway, as the former campaign manager had a difficult time defending the president's heath care bill. When Stephanopoulos questioned about the bill's cuts to the Medicaid program, Conway responded with an answer that didn't hold up to the facts.
"These are not cuts to Medicaid," Kellyanne Conway claimed. "This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility with Medicaid dollars," she continued, before noting that the Medicaid program had to be dialed back so it focused solely on "the poor, the sick, the needy" and others are "in need." George Stephanopoulos quickly responded, stating, "I don't see how you can that the $800 billion in savings is not cuts."
Fact-checked
"There's no way you could say that a 15-year-old on Medicaid is not going to be affected by the cuts in the future," the ABC host continued.
"You said everybody who is on Medicaid now is grandfathered in and is not is not going to face any cuts," George Stephanopoulos stated, before adding, "that simply is not functional if you have more than $800 billion in cuts."