--- title: Health Care Bill: Kellyanne Conway Denies Medicaid Cuts description: Kellyanne Conway denied the Senate's version of the Obamacare repeal bill would cut medicaid, even though the draft suggests otherwise. canonical: https://time.com/4832206/kellyanne-conway-health-care-bill-medicaid-cuts/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-25T20:21:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:18:27.547Z article:section: Politics og:title: Kellyanne Conway Says the Senate Health Care Bill Doesn't Cut Medicaid. That's Not True og:description: The draft revealed Thursday suggests otherwise og:url: https://time.com/4832206/kellyanne-conway-health-care-bill-medicaid-cuts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45ed2f9b899bd93b/6988d33d0a4a22d3eb9cec96/kellyanne-conway2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4874 og:image:height: 2742 og:image:alt: Kellyanne Conway og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Kellyanne Conway Says the Senate Health Care Bill Doesn't Cut Medicaid. That's Not True twitter:description: The draft revealed Thursday suggests otherwise twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45ed2f9b899bd93b/6988d33d0a4a22d3eb9cec96/kellyanne-conway2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kellyanne Conway Says the Senate Health Care Bill Doesn't Cut Medicaid. That's Not True > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 25, 2017 8:21 PM UTC  Kellyanne Conway, senior White House Advisor, is seen during a listening session conducted by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on June 21, 2017, in Washington. Kellyanne Conway, senior White House Advisor, is seen during a listening session conducted by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on June 21, 2017, in Washington. Alex Brandon—AP  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jun 25, 2017 8:21 PM UTC [White House](http://time.com/4825181/white-house-jared-kushner-middle-east-israel/) Senior Adviser [Kellyanne Conway](http://time.com/4805631/george-conway-trump-travel-ban-tweet/) denied that the Senate’s health care bill would cut Medicaid, even though the draft revealed Thursday suggests otherwise. “These are not cuts to [Medicaid](http://time.com/4828769/health-care-bill-medicaid-trump-cuts/),”Conway [told George Stephanopoulos](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-25-17-kellyanne-conway-sen-chuck/story?id=48254926) 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.” But the draft of the health care bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released on Thursday includes steep cuts to Medicaid, aiming to phase out the federal funding implemented under Obamacare for states to expand Medicaid eligibility. The non partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House version of the bill would cut Medicaid spending by $880 billion, which President Donald Trump [accounted for in his budget. ](http://fortune.com/2017/05/22/donald-trump-white-house-budget/)The CBO is slated to release their analysis of the Senate bill this coming week. Conway said former President Barack Obama had expanded Medicaid in a way that wasn’t always beneficial, and the bill would bring the program back to its “original moorings.” The people who the expansion helped, she said, would initially be grandfathered in but should consider other options. “Obamacare took Medicaid, which was designed to help the poor, the needy, the elderly, the sick, the disabled also children, and pregnant women, it took it and it went way above the poverty line and opened it up to many able-bodied Americans who should probably find other — should at least see if there are other options for them,” she said. “If they’re able-bodied and they want to work, then they’ll have employer-sponsored benefits like you and I do” But the Medicaid cuts proposed in the bill are the reason some Senators have expressed hesitation. West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito said she was[ “evaluating” the bill](http://fortune.com/2017/06/23/healthcare-bill-female-gop-senators/) to ensure it wouldn’t adversely affect her constituents, half a million of whom are on Medicaid. And Nevada Senator Dean Heller, who said on Friday that he [could not support the bill ](http://time.com/4831260/health-care-bill-dean-heller-gop-senator/?iid=sr-link1)in its current form, cited Medicaid cuts as a chief concern. “I have made clear that I want to make sure the rug is not pulled out from under Nevada or the more than 200,000 Nevadans who received insurance for the first time under Medicaid expansion,” Heller said in a statement after the bill was released. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4832206/kellyanne-conway-health-care-bill-medicaid-cuts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4832206/kellyanne-conway-health-care-bill-medicaid-cuts/"},"headline":"Kellyanne Conway Says the Senate Health Care Bill Doesn't Cut Medicaid. 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