In a contentious interview with George Stephanopoulos that recently aired on ABC, Kellyanne Conway drove home the point that the Senate health care bill currently on the table does not include cuts to Medicaid. Instead, she pointed out the bill merely slows the rate of future growth. Is Ms. Conway a liar, or are the spending reductions honestly just a decrease in the rate of expansion?
Several moderate Republican Senators have already come out against the bill, labeling the cuts as exactly that – cuts – while refusing to back the bill. Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Susan Collins (R-ME) would appear to disagree with Conway, based on their prior statements. George Stephanopoulos was adamant that he would not accept Conway’s argument. While the terms vary, the left is unanimous in their labeling of the bill as gutting, destroying, or collapsing Medicaid. So, what is the truth of the situation?
Luckily, the staff at the Congressional Budget Office just released their scorecard for the Senate bill. The highlights? The Senate bill would reduce deficits by $321 billion over the next decade. The CBO labels the savings as the result of “reductions in outlays.” In the quest to settle this debate, Liberty Nation created the following chart incorporating the CBO data. We show actual historical spending with the black line. The red line details growth projections under current law and the green line illustrates the estimates for the Senate bill.
For the visually impaired, the green line, or the level of spending proposed by the Senate bill, does not once dip below the current level of expenditures. Indeed, one could argue that the Senate bill increases Medicaid spending when compared in absolute terms to what the United States spends today.
Once again, the establishment media spins a narrative that just does not hold up when presented with the facts. If your boss considered giving you a 10% raise but then changed his mind a week later and settled on 5% instead, could you seriously complain that you just had your pay cut? Someone should tell Stephanopoulos, Heller, Collins, and all the rest to take a closer look at the numbers – the Senate bill does not cut Medicaid spending. Only in Washington is a reduction in the rate of growth demonized as a draconian cut.
