Politics

Krauthammer on Obamacare ‘fix’: ‘You can’t put Humpty Dumpty back’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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On Thursday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer deplored President Barack Obama’s announcement of a so-called fix to his health care law as a political gesture that has nothing to do with the law itself.

“This is all about show, this all about appearances,” Krauthammer said. “And this is all about the president protecting himself and some Democrats. Politically, Jonah [Goldberg] and Kirsten [Powers] are right. This is not going to have a real effect on those who lost their policies. The state health insurance commissioners have indicated and the insurers have indicated this is almost impossible to undo. You can’t put Humpty Dumpty back. He did it because there was a rebellion among Democrats on this end. Everyone knows about Republican opposition — wall-to-wall and constant. But what he was getting, especially after the statement by Bill Clinton who essentially said a few days ago, you know the president has not honored the promise he made. That’s number one, a pretty big accusation, even though he had the pseudo-apology.”

Noting that the political fallout from Obamacare has spread to the president’s own party, Krauthammer said Obama had to act to avoid a rebellion among Democrats who could be tempted to defect and vote with Republicans to alter the law.

“And second, he needs to change the law,” he continued. “Well here are all the Democrats furious at him. They went out on a limb for him. They’re getting all this mail from people that have lost their insurance plans. And he doesn’t want to change the law. So what he does — this is a stopgap because there’s going to be a bill introduced in the House by Republicans tomorrow and he was afraid of a stampede of [Democrats] who would support it and make him look completely isolated…to join the Republicans in changing the law, but the law itself. So he decided I’ll do an executive action as a way to at least allow the Democrats to say we’re trying something. But what the miscalculation is: These Democrats have to have a vote. They have to support what the Republicans are doing. They have to show on the record that they wanted to undo this disaster and that’s why some of them will support the Republicans tomorrow.”

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