Krauthammer’s Take: On Obamacare Replacement, GOP Has to ‘Forget about Deficits for the Short Run’

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBsvxQLKaCo

Crediting the Left’s ability to deepen government dependency, Charles Krauthammer said that the possibility of many people losing insurance is what’s daunting about repealing Obamacare, and he advised the GOP not to be overly frugal during the transition:

I think the split among Republicans is partly a matter of ideology, partly semantics. What the Republicans have to do is to make sure there aren’t a huge number of people hurt by the transition, that’s the reason they are daunted. The Left has a genius for ratcheting up dependency and government largess, and then daring Republicans, when they come into power, into undoing it because it’s extremely unpopular. And they did gin up a system that is completely unworkable but does have some who benefit, and some are going to lose.

I think what you have to do if you are a Republican, you have to forget about the bottom line, forget about deficits for the short run. You must cover these people one way or the other or you will have a PR, political catastrophe. Yes, you don’t want to bust the budget and there’ll be a transition period, but you can’t be counting your pennies now when there are going to be so many stories out there of people who are hurt and really hurting as a result of the reform.