Conway on healthcare bill: ‘These are not cuts to Medicaid’

White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Sunday rejected the idea that the GOP healthcare plan proposed cuts to Medicaid.

“These are not cuts to Medicaid,” Conway said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility with Medicaid dollars, because they’re closest to the people in need,” she said.

Conway called Medicaid “imperative.”

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“Its founding was meant to help the poor, the sick, the needy, the disabled, children, some elderly, women, particularly pregnant women,” she said. 

Senate Republican leaders last Thursday released a draft of their long-awaited ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill ahead of a high-stakes vote expected later this week.

The measure appears to include deep cuts to Medicaid and fundamentally reshapes that program from an open-ended government commitment to a system of capped federal payments that limit federal spending.

The Republican measure phases out the federal funding for ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid, which has provided coverage for about 11 million people in 31 states. The funding will phase out over four years from 2020 to 2024, which is less than the seven-year phaseout pushed by more moderate Republicans. 

The measure includes deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House bill, which started in 2025. Starting in that year, the cap on Medicaid payments would start growing at a slower rate, known as CPI-U, leading to deeper cuts over time.