President Donald Trump and the whole Republican Party needs a translator to explain the plans and need for healthcare reform to the United States, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday.
"I asked an audience the other day, 'how much do you think the House Republican Party bill cuts Medicaid over 10 years?" Gingrich told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program.
"The panel said 20 percent, 30 percent, 50 percent. I said, 'well, how would you feel if it went up 20 percent over 10 years?'"
Only in Washington, he continued, does a 20 percent increase count as a cut, and that's because "the Congressional Budget Office is a left wing institute that ought to be abolished. To the best of my knowledge, almost no Republican has walked around and said hey, 'we actually increase Medicaid spending.'"
It's the job of all congressional Republicans to explain what the repeal and replace measure means, said Gingrich.
"Every single member who is going to go home for the Fourth of July in the House and the Senate ought to have a set of positive talking points," said Gingrich.
"They ought to talk about what they are going to do in a positive way, how they are going to lower premiums, how they are going to bring back the insurance companies to places that don't have any choices anymore."
Obamacare has crushed the insurance marketplace, said Gingrich, and lawmakers need to talk about that.
When the Senate gets to conference, it will be talking about the final bill, and when that happens, Trump should make a speech.
"The truth is, he doesn't know what the Congress could pass," said Gingrich. "He doesn't know, as [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell doesn't know, what the Senate could pass. They are going to bring two very different bills into conference and that's the point where the president needs to start weighing in and outlining this is where we need to go."
A new Fox News poll shows Obamacare is at 52 percent favorability at this point, and Gingrich agreed that shows the challenge of trying to pull back an entitlement program.
"The Democrats have brilliantly figured out if I give you everything, and I can't pay for any of it, if I give you everything and then the Republicans come along and they want to give you less than that, I can scream at them," said Gingrich.
But if it is communicated that states are experiencing premium increases of more than 100 percent in some cases, that would show that Obamacare is "an unsustainable system where people actually are losing real coverage."