President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans should look to Medicaid as the least expensive way to fix a flagging Obamacare, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy tells MNSBC's Greta Van Susteren.
Ruddy appeared on the "For the Record with Greta" show Wednesday night to discuss his recent blog which urges President Trump to "ditch" the Freedom Caucus idea of completely repealing Obamacare and seek a new bipartisan plan instead.
Ruddy said the "simplest, easiest and cheapest way to cover the uninsured" is to use the existing Medicaid program.
The House plan, introduced last week as the American Health Care Act, does the exact opposite, Ruddy noted, cutting Medicaid expansion funding to states after 2020 while forcing millions of poor Americans into more expensive private insurance.
Ruddy had praise for President Trump and his abilities to make a healthcare deal.
If anyone can pull together warring Republicans to create a compromise bill, it is Trump, Ruddy added.
"I give the president a lot of credit," he said. "So many people in Washington run from a fire. He runs to it."
Trump could have put the issue on the back burner, but didn't, Ruddy told Van Susteren.
"It is like he says: Obamacare has been a disaster," Ruddy said. " I think [Trump] came into Washington with the very best of intentions here, and he thought the House Republicans, which have been studying this issue, dealing with it for many years, would have a really good proposal."
Instead, Ruddy was shocked to see they ended up with a plan that didn't even get the buy-in from House conservatives, GOP members of the Senate and outside conservative groups who care about the issue.
"Why would they present the president with a plan that they hadn't really sold?" he said. "Seems they were incredibly incompetent or lazy — or maybe a mixture of both."
Ruddy said he also agreed with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's view that Trump will own anything he signs if he can't get Democratic support. Graham appeared on the show earlier.
Ruddy noted that in 2010 voters who had Medicare and healthcare problems blamed Obamacare and the Democrats, even though the law had not really been implemented. The same could be true for Trump when voters go to the polls for congressional races in 2018, he added.
"If President Trump signs this, he's going to be responsible for everything that happens wrong with the healthcare system," he said, explaining the practical political consequences.
Ruddy, however, was optimistic the president could hammer out a bipartisan deal that fixes Obamacare and wouldn't anger voters.
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