Laura Ingraham: GOP Health Plan 'Trap for Trump'

The GOP healthcare reform plan is a "trap" for President Donald Trump as he heads into his 2020 re-election bid because state budgets will "implode" when they start losing Medicaid expansion dollars, radio show host Laura Ingraham said Tuesday, while calling for debate on the entire proposed law to begin now.

"This idea that Phase III is going to come and it's going to be some nirvana, if they believe they can get 60 votes for this Phase III that we heard about last week, then why not do it now?" Ingraham told Fox News' "Fox & Friends."

"Why not at the same time that you repeal, replace it with the best legislation Republicans have right now?"

By putting off the debate until later this year or next year, "state budgets are going to implode when this Medicaid expansion starts to retreat," she continued. "I think Donald Trump is going to get caught on this in 2020. I think there's a trap set for him on this. I'd like to spend an hour talking to him about it. I think this is a trap set for Trump, and it's going to be bad."

It is important, Ingraham said, for Republicans to stay on the offensive about what Obamacare has done to the United States, and lawmakers looking to repeal Obamacare should really repeal it.

"At the same time, introduce the new legislation," Ingraham said. "I think [House Speaker] Paul Ryan is right. The Democrats wouldn't like it, but the people would like it."

However, everything that is said to be going into the Phase III of the plan, including allowing insurance across state lines, "going after the drug companies for their ridiculous collusion, on their price of prescription drugs, all the anti-competitive practices that we know healthcare providers engage in. We know they get a lot antitrust protection."

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Ingraham on her radio program Monday that Phase III of the plan is a "fantasy," and she said she agrees.

"It's never going to happen because Republicans will lose this narrative on all these people losing healthcare," Ingraham said.

"Make the Democrats defend the status quo, where healthcare prices go up, up, up every year because of the medical monopolies," Ingraham said. "That in my view is the better way to go. It forces the Democrats to defend an untenable system."

Now, however, people are busy debating the Congressional Budget Office's projection millions of Americans will lose coverage, and "bickering over whether the CBO was right or wrong, but most people don't know what the CBO is, they don't follow the CBO. We lose that narrative every time. The Republicans blew the storytelling on this. I think that's really unfortunate."

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