President Donald Trump was famously quoted on health care recently as saying “I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

Most of us sarcastically say things because we know that the people we are talking to realize when we are joking. But we, unlike Trump, are not politicians. If we were, we would know to be a lot more careful because those quotes will taken out of context and held against you by your enemies.

Trump has a lot of enemies, especially in the media. He should have figured out by now that you have to talk with a bit more circumspection as president than he is used to.

There may be a lot of things not to like about Donald Trump, but he is not so stupid as to have ever believed that fixing health care was not complicated. I know my Democrat friends would like to think he is, but c’mon.

It reminds me of a line from one of my favorite comedy movies “My Cousin Vinny.” Ralph Macchio was playing a New York kid named Bill (not the Karate Kid) that is accused of a murder that he did not commit.

The sheriff interrogates Bill before he has any idea what he is really being questioned about. The sheriff suddenly asks “when did you shoot him?” Bill, confused, says: “what?” The sheriff continues with “at what point did you shoot the clerk?”

Bill responds incredulously: “I shot the clerk? I shot the clerk?” Then he says “Whoa! Wait a minute!”

In the trial, Macchio is hilariously defended by his cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci). The sheriff testifies that Bill confessed to the murder of the clerk. He simply read Bill’s words as if it were a statement “I shot the clerk. I shot the clerk.”

I think something similar was done to Trump by the media. In the movie, Vinny and his smart girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) get Bill acquitted. Will Donald?

Trump isn’t stupid, but he is no rocket scientist either. When it comes to health care, I think he is relying on his smart friends in the White House and on Capitol Hill to get him “acquitted.”

Will these friends be as successful helping him as Vinny was? They will be if they follow one simple principle that was not followed in the writing of Obamacare. K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple Stupid.

The politics of health care is extremely complicated, I admit. Dealing with all the special interests like hospitals, insurance companies, medical associations, etc. and the money they provide their political friends doesn’t make it that way.

My advice to Trump is that the health care system itself should not be be so complicated. People need it. It is of paramount importance to them. They don’t like to be sick or in pain. They don’t like to die if they can avoid it.

The problem is that we have made health care way more expensive than we can afford. There will be no solution unless you get the cost down. And make it accessible to everyone, including the poor. There is already a proven system that can do just that. It is called Medicaid.

So keep it simple. Just fix Medicaid.

The good thing that worked about Obamacare was that Medicaid was extended. The bad thing was that it was extended without getting costs down and providing people a disincentive to work.

Hopefully Donald, you find a cousin Vinny to help you keep it simple. Force the costs down on Medicaid (there are ways) and extend it to everybody that can’t afford basic health insurance. Let the free market offer superior insurance that incentivizes people to help pay for themselves. That makes conservatives and liberals both happy. Get back to fixing the economy so we can pay for it all.

That’s my take. In our weekly poll last week, our readers were about equally divided between keeping Obamacare (47.5 percent) and coming up with some kind of new plan (52.5 percent).

Part of getting conservatives to sign off on expanded Medicaid is a new Republican idea to keep the costs down by adding a work requirement. The goal would be to prevent able-bodied Americans from just choosing not to work and swelling the Medicaid rolls.

Should there be a work requirement for able-bodied adults to enroll in Medicaid? That is this week’s Post Weekly Online Poll question. You have until Tuesday to vote and give your own advice to The Donald.