Fox News political commentator Charles Krauthammer is laying out the challenge for Republicans attempting to find common ground on replacing ObamaCare, saying that “you cannot retract an entitlement once it has been granted.”
During a panel discussion during Fox News’s “Special Report” Tuesday night, Krauthammer urged Republicans to get behind the American Health Care Act, the ObamaCare repeal-and-replace legislation supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
“This is, in a sense, Obamacare lite. I’m willing to admit it,” said Krauthammer, a nightly fixture on the program.
“Paul Ryan, the others, aren’t,” he added
{mosads}”The Republicans denounced the New Deal for 20 years. Eisenhower comes into office in 1953, and they don’t touch an element of it. Social Security remains intact. They were not suicidal, and they lived to govern another day.”
“You cannot retract an entitlement once it has been granted,” Krauthammer concluded. “That’s the genius of the left. There is no country in the west that has developed national health insurance and then revoked it despite all the problems.”
Host Bret Baier noted that “you have to do something because insurance companies are going to leave and the thing is collapse.”
Krauthammer agreed and suggested that no one in the GOP will get everything they demand out of a final bill.
“Accept the fact that you are not going to get everything you want,” he said. “Reagan said, ‘I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over a cliff with my flag flying.’ You don’t want to go over a cliff.
“Yes, you want the tax credits. I’m willing to admit it is an entitlement. It is superior to the subsidies in ObamaCare, a lot of other advantages. Get it while you can and worry about the rest later.”
House committees on Wednesday will begin working on legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare amid party squabbles.