Ryan Claims Cutting $800B From Medicaid Will Be Just Fine #p2 #tcot

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ryan-claims-cutting-800b-medicaid-wil 

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This week on This Week, George Stephanopoulos did a slightly less awful job this week. Not good - but not as bad as usually, pointing out the effect of Medicaid block grants (still using the fig leaf of "President Clinton said," which is why I won't say it was good) upon the poor and needy:

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Clinton also took aim at the savings you do propose in Medicaid -- $800 billion -- the largest specific savings in your plan. That's about a 35 percent reduction over the next decade.

And the president argued that it's going to be devastating for seniors who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care, middle class families challenged by disabilities, children with autism. How can you squeeze that much money of a program, $800 billion without cutting benefits or restricting eligibility?

RYAN: Here's the secret on this one. Medicaid spending still goes up under what we're proposing. What we're saying is we want to repeal ObamaCare because we think it's a terrible law. And so we're taking away the massive increases in ObamaCare that are attributable to Medicaid. About a third of the people that ObamaCare is supposed to serve, they're just pushing people on Medicaid.

Here's the problem, George. Medicaid's not working. More and more doctors are less likely to even take people with Medicaid. It's a system that needs reforming.

So we don't want to put more money and force more people on a program that's failing, that's not working. We want to reform Medicaid. And so what we're saying is, don't expand this program as dramatically as ObamaCare does. Keep it like it is, increase its funding and send it to the states to the states can fix this problem. I think government closest to the people, especially in providing health care for the poor, works the best.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But The Urban Institute has estimated that between 14 million and 27 million people will -- fewer people will be covered under that plan and won't [that be] block granting this program, sending it to the states mean that low-income and disabled people will lose their guaranteed right to coverage?

rest at 

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ryan-claims-cutting-800b-medicaid-wil