WASHINGTON — Republicans, under fire for proposing health care legislation that would reduce Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars, have embraced an old argument that taking money from a program is not a “cut.”

At first glance, the new pitch to make their strategy more palatable seems at odds with the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that the “Better Care Reconciliation Act” would reduce Medicaid spending by $772 billion over a decade. By 2026, Medicaid enrollment would drop by 16 percent among people under the age of 65.

So, are there cuts or not?

Asked over the weekend about the prospect of Medicaid cuts, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said on ABC that Republicans were not in fact cutting funding for the government-run insurance program for the poor. “We don’t see them as cuts,” she said. Rather, Republicans want to slow the growth of Medicaid spending to preserve it.

Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, also resisted the notion that the Senate bill would cripple Medicaid. He argued on CBS that it would “codify and make permanent the Medicaid expansion” that was put in place by the Affordable Care Act.