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Cuts to Medicaid? What cuts to Medicaid? There are no cuts to Medicaid here.

Kellyanne Conway appears on ABC News This Week on June 25, 2017. (ABC News)

The lies came fast and furious on the Sunday shows this weekend, as Republican lawmakers and their surrogates reckoned with a tough truth: The only way to sell the Senates cruel and deeply unpopular health-care bill is to absolutely misrepresent what is in it. And that was before the Congressional Budget Office scored the Senate bill, and found 15 million people will be insured bynext year.Which, by the way, is a kind of crucial midterm election year, in which the presidents party almost always loses power.

Those Sunday lies, though, should force journalists to acknowledge another truth: Donald Trump isnt a rogue Republican; he is making the party over in his image. Before and after Trumps election, youll recall, optimistic Republican leaders predicted that being president might change and sober Trump and that elected GOP leaders could have some influence over the erratic, unprepared commander in chief. But influence seems to have worked the other way: Republicans have seen that Trump can lie without consequence, and theyre trying to make the same approach work for them. Its not that theyve never lied before, but this weekends Lie-O-Rama was remarkable.

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway won the prize for lying most brazenly, telling ABCs This Week that while the bill cuts $800 billion from Medicaid, These are not cuts to Medicaid. She then contradicted herself by acknowledging the bill could maybe, possibly cut Medicaid for the able-bodied, but insisted: If they are able-bodied, and they want to work, then theyll have employer-sponsored benefits like you and I do.

Of course, 60 percent of able-bodied adults currently on Medicaid already do work, and 80 percent are in households where somebody worksat jobs that dont provide benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House bill would throw 14 million Americans off Medicaid over the next 10 years; the Senate bill slashes 15 million patients. Its Medicaid cuts are ultimately deeper, and they both shave and cap funds for the traditional program, not just the Obama expansion. On the same show, Maine GOP Senator Susan Collins contradicted Conway: I respectfully disagree with her analysis. Based on what Ive seen, given the inflation rate that would be applied in the outer years to the Medicaid program, the Senate bill is going to have more impact on the Medicaid program than even the House bill.

On CNN, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price might have tied Conway for brazen lying, insisting,We will not have individuals lose coverage. The CBO, of course, said the House bill would cost 23 million Americans their health insurance; on Monday the score for the Senate bill said it would cut 22 million. But Price didnt leave his lies there; he also claimed that the plan, in its entirety, will absolutely bring prices down. Maybe he meant tax costs for millionaires? Theyll get a $50,000 tax cut, while the top .01 percent gets a $250,000 tax cut. Thats the only explanation of Prices claim that makes sense; older Americans, in particular, are going to face higher costs, and lower federal subsidies. (Oh, and also: The tax cuts Price and others defend as job-creating will be retroactive to the end of 2016. How do you create jobs in the past?)

Even with all the lying, the Sunday shows were unable to find a single senator who would flat-out defend the bill and commit to supporting it, although many of those who claimed to be on the fence probably are not. Pennsylvanias Pat Toomey was deeply involved in drafting the bill; on Face the Nation he insisted that Conway is right, and no one will lose coverage if theyre on Medicaid. His colleague, Louisianas Bill Cassidy, explained that the goal is to move some of the Medicaid recipients to private insurance, proving again that the bill is written primarily with the interests of the insurance industry in mind. Cassidy has claimed he would vote against any bill that didnt meet the Jimmy Kimmel test, referring to the comedians viral monologue in which he broke down describing his newborn sons struggle with a congenital heart defect and demanded that no family should have to go without the care that saved his sons life. But magically, on Thursday, when the bill was released, Cassidy crowed to reporters that the new draft met the Jimmy Kimmel test.

Jimmy Kimmel, who happens to be an actual living person, quickly took to Twitter to disagree:

But while were talking lies, we should also praise the GOP senators who told the truth, at least as they see it. Senator Ron Johnson, another supposed opponent of the bill who will probably cave to McConnell, deserves a prize for the most honest, if unfortunate, explanation of how Republicans look at people with preexisting conditions (including, sadly, Jimmy Kimmels infant son). Think of them as people with bad driving records, who are expected to pay higher insurance than safe, careful drivers.

Weve done something with our health care system that you would never think about doing, for example, with auto insurance, where you would require auto insurance companies to sell a policy to somebody after they crash their car. States that haveguarantees for preexisting conditions, it crashes their markets, said Johnson.

So infant Billy Kimmel is like someone who crashed his car, although he cant even crawl yet, let alone drive. Obviously, he should have been more careful before winding up with congenital heart disease. Im sorry, thats not even funny. But this is how they think.

Also on Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence Tweeted that Trumpcare will restore personal responsibility to the issue of health care. He was swarmed by people sharing their stories of cancer and other diseases that would now be considered preexisting conditions and lock them out of affordable health insurance, lamenting their own lack of personal responsibility and the fact that they had the terrible judgment to get sick.

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Those stories wont move Pence, but maybe theyll move others. Collins professes to be concerned not only about defunding Planned Parenthoodwhich some argue might be impossible because of arcane Senate rules that come into play because McConnell is using reconciliation to pass this billbut also steep Medicaid cuts. Alaskas Lisa Murkowski and West Virginias Shelly Moore Capito express similar reservations. The countrys most vulnerable Republican senator, Nevadas Dean Heller, has come out formally against the bill, in language that makes it hard to imagine he can be bought off, with, say, additional funding for opioid treatment and rural hospitals that might lure Capito and Ohios Rob Portman. I would say that, listening to Susan Collins, her objections sound so thoroughgoing, it would be hard to see her vote yes. But experience shows that Collins frequently talks compassion and then caves to her leaders and votes for cruelty. We can hope this time is different.

On the right, Utahs Mike Lee, Texass Ted Cruz, Kentuckys Rand Paul and Ron Johnson all say they are a no, but almost nobody believes them. Paul, thoughlike Collins and Hellerspeaks in such apocalyptic terms about the bill, he almost seems un-gettable. Heller, Paul and Collins are all thats needed to sink the bill; if they stand strong, theyd probably wind up with more company from the partys right and centrist flanks. Nobody wants to be the one that makes this bill fail, but if it looks like it will fail, expect a stampede to avoid having another Rose Garden party to celebrate legislation that will literally cause thousands of deaths.

Only one thing is certain: Protest is making a difference. Planned Parenthood will storm the Capitol on Tuesday. On Wednesday at five, protesters will form a human chain around the Capitol to demonstrate against the bill. After weeks of quiet, congressional offices are reporting new activism; many Republicans voice mail systems are full. The sad defeatism of last week has given way to optimism by Affordable Care Act defenders. But its going to take a lot of work to overcome the determination and structural advantages of House Speaker Paul Ryan, McConnell and Trump, as well as their willingness to lie.

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Republicans Spent the Weekend Lying Their Faces Off About Health Care - The Nation.

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Will travel ban be Republicans's first big break with Trump? - Sacramento Bee

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday that Americans are rejecting the Democrats' knee-jerk opposition to President Trump and boldly predicted that Americans would reward Republicans in 2018 for following through on a healthcare agenda that, for now, is deeply unpopular.

In an impromptu interview to discuss the Republicans' four special election victories, including last week's crucial win in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, Ryan said the liberal strategy for dealing with Trump has been discredited. So, too, the speaker added, would doubters of his party's legislation to partially repeal Obamacare.

"The Democrats are in disarray. All they're doing is suggesting they're going to come and fight and resist, and I don't think that's what voters want," the Wisconsin Republican told the Washington Examiner. "We just saw four victories for tackling problems and addressing issues, and four defeats for just simple resistance and that was the basis of their campaign."

The "resistance" is a slogan used by many of Trump's opponents on the Left.

Just days away from a critical Senate vote for companion legislation to the House-passed American Health Care Act, Ryan's happy talk on healthcare struck a familiar tone.

Back in 2009 and 2010, as President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were closing in on final passage the extremely unpopular Affordable Care Act, they vowed that Americans would embrace Obamacare once it was implemented and they experienced the benefits.

It never happened, and Democrats paid a heavy price in dozens and dozens of lost seats in consecutive midterm elections. Until, that is, this year, when the Republicans' plans to replace the law got rolling. For the time in its existence, Obamacare has spent consecutive months more popular than not.

Republicans are pushing forward, but they're concerned about blowback in 2018, especially with Trump in the White House. They shouldn't be, Ryan insisted.

"Whether or not it's being perceived well, or understood fairly, is not the question so much as: Do we achieve the result? That means we have to pass our policies to achieve good results and let the results speak for themselves," Ryan said. "Whether or not we can communicate in the fog of the moment is not as important as: Do our policies make a difference and do they solve the problem? And, the answer is, yes.' And, that's why we have to see it through."

Ryan's bullishness isn't without some justification.

Georgia's suburban Atlanta 6th District is educated and upscale. It's been Republican for decades but barely chose Trump in November over Democrat Hillary Clinton. It's the type of seat Democrats needs to compete for to have any chance of winning back the House next year.

Democratic energy and money poured into the race from all over the country, and polls showed Democrat Jon Ossoff poised to pull an upset until the very end, when the race started to turn. It was the fourth victory in as many House specials that included narrower than expected wins in three other districts that are solidly conservative.

It also happened with Trump's job approval hovering around 40 percent, after the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election that could implicate the president.

It also happened during the debate, and after passage, of a health care overhaul in the House that, according to a poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, only 16 percent of Americans think is a "good idea," with 48 percent saying it's a "bad idea."

Still, it was unusual to hear Ryan eschew the usual lines about caution and the danger of midterm elections for the party that controls the White House. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose majority appears more secure than Ryan's because of a favorable map, is warning his members that the winds can change quickly.

"Voters want us to do what we said we would do. They like what we said we would do, and we simply have to execute. And, so by executing our agenda, by keeping our momentum, we'll keep a virtuous cycle going," Ryan said. "We are on offense; we need to stay on offense."

Ryan dismissed questions about Trump's drag on his members, especially incumbents running for re-election in districts that Trump lost to Clinton last year despite their tradition of voting for Republicans.

The day that James Comey, the FBI director Trump fired under controversial circumstances, testified before a Senate committee, House Republicans repealed Dodd-Frank, Obama's signature financial reform law, the speaker said, as proof that the president's periodic distractions aren't really that distracting.

But Ryan's robust political operation, and his personal attention to fundraising, suggests that he understands what his party could be up against in 2018.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm, and his affiliated super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, were the biggest players for the party in the specials. He is raising record amounts of cash for a speaker, and has already transferred $22 million to the NRCC.

Since January, Ryan has held 154 fundraisers and meetings across the country, traveling to 42 cities and 20 states, raising more than $30 million. The speaker has raised an additional $3.4 million for his colleagues by headlining their fundraisers.

So what's Ryan telling his members to keep them on track and discouraged by the heat, or the tweetstorm, of the moment? "Let's get our work done. We built out a timeline for this agenda for this term. Let's go execute it," he said.

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Paul Ryan: Republicans will be vindicated in 2018 on healthcare - Washington Examiner

By Travis Fain

Raleigh, N.C. Republicans released a redraw of the state's judicial and prosecutorial districts Sunday evening, setting up a committee hearing Monday afternoon on a potential overhaul of the state's third branch of government.

Gov. Roy Cooper, during a budget press conference, said he needed to review the legislation but said it appears an attempt to "rig the courts" in favor of the GOP legislative majority.

"What I've heard simply tells me they're trying to rig the courts because they lost," Cooper said. "This is an attempt to threaten the judiciary and to rig the judiciary in their favor."

House Bill 717 is 21 pages of detailed precinct movements to rework judicial lines in the state. Maps tweeted Sunday night by state Rep. Justin Burr, R-Stanly, the bill sponsor, show a number of changes from the status quo.

Peg Dorer, director of the Conference of District Attorneys, said the new districts would eliminate two district attorneys one covering Scotland and Hoke counties and another for Anson and Richmond ceding their area to other districts. It makes changes to seven prosecutorial districts overall, Dorer said.

"They're pairing some things up and moving some things around that is going to cause a lot of hardship," she said. "It's just a mess.

"And, if you want to get political about it, all of the losers are Democrats," Dorer said.

On Twitter, Democracy North Carolina called the bill a "gerrymander" that merges maps "for conservative control." State Rep. Grier Martin, D-Wake, said in a telephone interview that the bill seems to be part of "the same effort to bend the government of North Carolina toward the will of the Republican Party."

Martin said he received a "stat pack" with racial and partisan breakdowns of the changes at about 9:30 a.m. Monday and that he would review the crucial information in analyzing the changes. The timing a new map released in what may be the last week of this legislative session, by a GOP majority whose congressional and legislative maps have been found unconstitutional by the federal courts is disturbing, Martin said.

"Utter lack of transparency," he said.

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NC Republicans seek to redraw judicial maps - WRAL.com

The Brezhnev Doctrine said that the Soviet empire could only expand and never give back its gains. A domestic version of the doctrine has long applied to the welfare state and never so brazenly as in the debate over the Republican health-care bill.

Its reforms to Medicaid are portrayed as provisions to all but forcibly expel the elderly from nursing homes and send poor children to the workhouse. Bernie Sanders has called the bill barbaric, a word that once was reserved for, say, chattel slavery or suttee, but is now considered appropriate for a change in the Medicaid funding formula.

The Republican health bills have two major elements on Medicaid, rolling back the enhanced funding for the Obama Medicaid expansion and over time instituting a new per-capita funding formula for the program. The horror.

The Democrats now make it sound as if the Obama expansion is part of the warp and woof of Medicaid. In fact, it was a departure from the norm in the program, which since its inception has been, quite reasonably, limited to poor children, pregnant women, the disabled and the ailing elderly. ObamaCare changed it to make a priority of covering able-bodied adults.

ObamaCare originally required states to enroll able-bodied adults with incomes less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line starting in 2014. The Supreme Court re-wrote the law to make the expansion voluntary, and 31 states and the District of Columbia took it up.

Traditionally, the federal government had paid more to poor than rich states, with a match ranging from 75 percent for the poorest state, Mississippi, to 50 percent for the rich states. ObamaCare created an entirely new formula for the Medicaid expansion population. It offered a 100 percent federal match for the new enrollees, gradually declining to a 90 percent match supposedly, forever.

So, perversely, ObamaCare had a larger federal match for the able-bodied enrollees in Medicaid than for its more vulnerable populations.

This higher federal matching rate, writes health-care analyst Doug Badger, allows states to leverage more federal money per state dollar spent on a non-disabled adult with $15,000 in earnings than on a part-time minimum-wage worker with developmental disabilities, who earns barely half that amount.

According to Badger, West Virginia received seven times as much federal money for spending $1 on an able-bodied adult than for spending $1 on a disabled person.

This obviously makes no sense, and the Senate health-care bill phases out the enhanced funding over four years. But it doesnt end the expanded Medicaid eligibility for the able-bodied. And a refundable tax credit will be available for low-income people that is meant to pick up any slack from Medicaid. This is hardly social Darwinism.

The other, longer-term change in the House and Senate bills is moving to a per-capita funding formula for Medicaid, with the Senate bill ratcheting the formula down to per-capita growth plus the inflation rate in 2026. Maybe this will prove too stringent, but it used to be a matter of bipartisan consensus that the current structure of Medicaid creates an incentive for heedless growth in the program.

The way it works now is that Mississippi, for instance, gets nearly $3 from the federal government for every $1 it spends. Why ever economize? In the 1990s, the Clinton administration advanced what it portrayed as an unobjectionable proposal to make Medicaid more efficient while preserving the programs core function namely, a per-capita funding formula.

The presidents per-capita proposal, the liberal lion Henry Waxman enthused at the time, responds to the pleas of those who want more cost discipline in Medicaid without terminating the guarantee of basic health and long-term care to 36 million Americans.

But that was before ObamaCare lurched the program in the other direction. The Brezhnev Doctrine dictates that what once was common sense must now be unimaginable cruelty.

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Relax, Republicans' Medicaid changes aren't that big of a deal - New York Post