HHS head Tom Price leaves Jake Tapper speechless by claiming $880 billion in Medicaid cuts will benefit patients

On Sunday morning's interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price asserted that the Congressional Budget Office's estimation that $880 billion would be cut from Medicaid spending would somehow empower states to "tailor" their Medicaid coverage to better suit its recipients.

In the beginning of the segment, Tapper asked Price whether President Donald Trump is keeping his campaign promise of no cuts to Medicaid by promoting a bill that will cut $880 billion in Medicaid.

"Without question, $880 billion fewer dollars is a cut. How is this not a broken promise?" Tapper asked Price.

Price appeared to dodge the question entirely (and did again later in the segment) by discussing in vague terms the benefits of the new GOP healthcare plan.

"Imagine a system that works better for patients," Price said. "What we're fashioning is a system that would allow the states to tailor that Medicaid program to those specific individuals saving money but also a higher level of care than they currently do. Sounds like it makes a lot of sense."

Price's assertion that Trumpcare's Medicaid cuts will benefit patients leaves out the 14 million that the CBO said would lose their Medicaid under the GOP's new healthcare law. Despite rolling out the talking point that a third of doctors who could see Medicaid patients fail to do so, Price did not offer any solution for the root cause: that, as Tapper says, many do not see Medicaid patients because they are poorly reimbursed by the government.

In his roundabout speech, Price also failed to respond to Tapper's questions regarding the American Medical Association's opposition to Trumpcare based on the CBO's findings, instead suggesting that patients "talk to their doctors" about why the AMA and others oppose the bill.

Watch the exchange below via CNN: