Reince Priebus was on ABC News “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday when Priebus was asked directly whether his boss, Donald Trump, would cut Medicaid. Despite being asked twice, Priebus danced around the question before giving a vague indication that some people would still have some sort of health care coverage:
STEPHANOPOULOS: First steps to repealing Obamacare taken in the House and Senate this week. And we just heard from Senator Sanders as well saying he wants to see a tweet, believer it or not, from the president-elect. He wants it to be a tweet saying he stands by what he said during the campaign, no cuts in Medicaid, no cuts in Medicare, no cuts in Social Security. Is that still the position of the president-elect?
PRIEBUS: That's his position. And that's the position he's going to be taking. So, there are no plans in President-elect Trump's policies moving forward to touch Medicare and Social Security.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What about Medicaid?
Repealing ObamaCare would cut Medicaid.
PRIEBUS: Well, look, I mean those are things that we're going to be discussing over the next several weeks. But certainly ObamaCare is something that isn't very popular around the country. In fact, it's like an 80/20 issue right now for Republicans. It's not working. People aren't choosing their doctor. They're not keeping their health care. Premiums are not going down, they're going up. All of the promises of ObamaCare, all of those shiny objects that were sold in Christmas in 2009 didn't come true.
People voted for Donald Trump. They want to repeal and replace ObamaCare. And we will. And we will cover those folks that are on ObamaCare that need to be covered, but at the same time, we're going to find ways to lower prices, allow people to choose better doctors, and have a lot more freedom when it comes to health care.
I dunno. But I do know that if I were Priebus (and thank heavens I am not!), I'd be fighting tooth and nails to keep Obamacare as is, if not improvement. After all, even though yellow belly, lily liver, spinelessness and a forked tongue might all be pre-existing conditions, they'd still be covered.
