Dem rep: I don’t think Trump has read healthcare bill

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) claimed Thursday that President Trump has not read the Senate GOP’s healthcare bill.

Lieu cited the president’s recent comments that the ObamaCare repeal-and-replace measure does not cut Medicaid in making the assertion. 

“New [Congressional Budget Office] score shows [Trump] is lying again when he says Trumpcare doesn’t cut Medicaid,” tweeted Lieu, a vocal critic of Trump. 

“I think @POTUS has not read Trumpcare,” he wrote, pointing to the CBO’s recent analysis that said the healthcare bill would cut Medicaid spending by $772 billion over a decade.

New CBO score shows @realDonaldTrump is lying again when he says #Trumpcare doesn’t cut Medicaid. I think @POTUS has not read Trumpcare. https://t.co/TotWizZFCh

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 29, 2017

{mosads}Trump argued in a tweet Wednesday that Democrats have intentionally “misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill,” saying it “actually goes up.”

While Medicaid spending would increase each year under the new legislation, the measure puts a new cap in place that would prevent Medicaid spending from rising as fast as medical costs.

States would then have to pay out of their own state budgets to make up for the difference or scale back Medicaid enrollment or services. 

GOP leaders delayed a vote on the new bill until after the July Fourth recess when several Republican senators indicated they would oppose a motion to bring the bill to a vote. 

Nine GOP senators have now said they would oppose the bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the party would take the coming weeks to work on the bill and resolve differences among senators.