HHS Secretary Tom Price: $880 Billion Cut to Medicaid ‘Makes A Lot of Sense’ (Video)

Price Further Insisted Cuts Will Result in Higher Level of Care

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said today that the $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid under Trumpcare would provide a higher level of care to recipients of the program and “makes a lot of sense. 

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Price defended the passage of the American Health Care Act (ACHA, TrumpCare) in the House, and in particular, the $880 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program. Watch:

“During the campaign, President Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican,” Jake Tapper said, presenting clips of then candidate Donald Trump promising just that for Price.

“I’m not gonna cut Social Security like every Republican,” Donald Trump said in May of 2015, “and I’m not gonna cut Medicare or Medicaid.”

As The New York Times reported, TrumpCare would cut Medicaid by $880 billion, or 25 percent, imposing caps on funding for children and the elderly.

“Without question, $880 billion fewer dollars is a cut,” Tapper pressed the Secretary. “How is this not a broken promise?”

“Well, look at the Medicaid program we have right now, Jake,” Price responded before encouraging those in danger of losing their healthcare to “imagine a Medicaid system that actually works better for patients.”

“Medicaid is a system that deals with the disabled, the elderly, healthy moms and kids,” Price said. “What we’re fashioning is a system that would allow the states to tailor their Medicaid program to those specific individuals – thereby saving money, yes, but also making it so that they have a higher level of care, higher quality of care than they currently do.”

“That sounds like it makes a lot of sense,” Price insisted.

 

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