Lawmakers from both sides will face a big challenge when it comes to deciding what to do about Obamacare, political strategist and Fox News correspondent Karl Rove said Wednesday.
"The Republican challenge is that they need to reassure those people who have private insurance on Obamacare that they will be taken care of, and reassure them that they aren't going to lose their coverage, that they'll get something better," Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
"They need to reassure the people. Most of the people covered under the Affordable Care Act are covered under the Medicaid expansion. [There will be] no change for them."
The best way to reassure people, he continued, is to lay out a step-by-step plan over the next few months about what people can expect.
On the Democrats' side, lawmakers need to admit Obamacare has problems, as "they're defending something that is clearly broken."
Republicans are saying they will make healthcare better, Rove continued, while the "Democrats are living in la-la land."
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for example, has said Obamacare has been successful with increasing access to insurance and improving care, but neither has happened, Rove said.
"Vice President-elect [Mike] Pence was right," Rove said. "Every single promise used to sell this to the American people has turned out not to be true. If you're covered by an Affordable Care Act policy, you know your deductible is significantly higher than it was, and your premiums are skyrocketing, and the amount of access you have is diminishing as companies pull out of providing coverage."
Even though President Barack Obama was on Capitol Hill to speak with Democrats about Obamacare and other Republican policies on Wednesday, Rove said he expects Democrats will eventually fold on Obamacare.
"My sense what will happen is Democrats will find themselves in a place where they won't want to defend the premiums, and they won't want to defend the high deductibles and defend people finding fault with the Affordable Care Act," Rove said. "They'll want to find a place where they can say 'here are the changes we're for.' That's going to be hard for them to get from status quo to 'oh no, we really need changes.'"
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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