Posted on 10/31/2013 5:05:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Obamacare’s glitches are here to stay according to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.
In an exclusive interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, set to air Tuesday night on “The Kudlow Report,” Ryan said the problems with the Affordable Care Act extend far beyond website malfunctions.
“It’s more than the website,” Ryan said. “It’s because this law itself is built from an architecture, a foundation, that’s just not workable.”
Ryan said he sat through several House Committee Oversight meetings in which the administration failed to answer fundamental questions on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
“The point is they said ‘everything is fine, the law is going to be OK. We are ready to roll it out. We won’t have any problems.’”
But House Republicans knew better, Ryan said.
“People should know that we tried to prevent this from happening in the first place by fighting a law we did not intend,” Ryan said, referring to the Republican-led House’s 46 attempts to repeal the law.
“Then we tried giving people relief from the law by delaying it until 2013. That was rejected and now we are living with this law.”
Frustrated with the Senate’s rejection of attempts to defund and delay the law, Ryan shifted to the GOP’s most plausible tactic to end the Affordable Care Act: winning elections.
“We owe the American people an alternative,” Ryan said. “We want to win elections by saying this is not working for you and there are better ways in keeping with the country’s principles that puts you in charge of your health care future.”
Ryan dismissed criticism that the Republican Party is at a “civil war” after failed attempts to delay Obamacare as part of the government shutdown and debt ceiling negotiations.
“We’ve had disagreements with each other on tactics,” he said. “These aren’t principles. I don’t know a Republican that doesn’t support comprehensive reforms to replace Obamacare with patient-centered health care.”
The Wisconsin Congressman said the GOP will have a chance to showcase their common principles in budget negotiations set to begin Wednesday.
He rejected hopes for a “grand bargain” deal, which he said would include pro-growth tax reform, a balanced budget and entitlement reform
“I don’t think we’ll get a grand bargain, and we’re not talking about getting a grand bargain,” he said. “Because then, one party will require that the other compromise their core principles, and we won’t get anything done.”
The GOP’s key bargaining chip, Ryan said, is the sequestration, the automatic spending cuts Democrats are seeking to repeal.
“If we can’t get anything better than the sequester, then we’ll keep the sequester,” Ryan said. “That’s our base case to begin with.”
Ryan insisted increased tax revenue was out of the question, calling Keynesian stimulus programs “sugar-high economics.”
“We’re not in this business to raise taxes,” he said. “We’ll take the spending cuts we have and work with those.”
Instead, he said he was willing to negotiate on the “smarter” cuts to replace sequestration.
“If we get a down payment on this debt and deficit in exchange for short-term relief, we’ll take it,” he said. “But it has to be on net a positive, meaning we will take the spending cuts right now.”
Ryan said substituting entitlement reform in place of broad spending cuts under sequestration would enable long-term growth in the U.S. economy.
“If smart entitlement reforms could replace this crude across-the-board sequester, it would do a couple things,” Ryan said. “It would show the world that America is getting ahead of its problems. We’re not just going to victims of circumstances. We’re not just going to fall into a debt crisis like Europe, but we’re going to get out of it.”
Entitlement should be at the top of the budget agenda, Ryan said.
“The question is not if we deal with entitlements,” Ryan said. “The question is if we are going to do it before the debt crisis or after the debt crisis. We would like to do it before so that we can shape events in this country instead of having events shape us.”
The Congressman said, ultimately, his job is to find common ground in budget negotiations among Republicans and Democrats.
“I would argue that in this very difficult time that we are in, wouldn’t it be nice to show that this American divided government can at least govern?”
No shit, Sherlock.
BUT, I bet somewhere in his political lexicon is the phrase “comprehensive immigration reform IS workable.”
Please slither back to RINOland and work on that cheap labor- invader bill your corporate masters have you working on. You no longer represent anything even remotely conservative or constitutional.
Paul who??
Your comment certainly supports your tagline. Let me ask you this? What expertise went into crafting Obamacare, other than the wish from Democrats to firmly insert themselves into the personal lives of all Americans, and create a political tool for punishing their enemies? Do you hold Democrats up to the same levels of expertise?
It does not take a rocket scientist to know that Obamacare is unworkable. Anecdotal evidence bears that out, and Ryan is certainly savvy enough to declare it won't work. Ryan does have budget expertise, and he can say from a budgetary perspective, "Obamacare won't work."
More Republicans need to be saying the same thing; they all need to be on the same page.
You obviously have no clue what a RINO is
And really, when has that ever stopped a politician from declaring expertise?
Still, Republican MDs, like Bill Frist and Rand Paul have decalred Obamacare "unworkable" too, but they made have said it from a pure medical perspective.
Ted Cruz was right. Why can’t any of these GOP geniuses say it???
No Child Left Behind √
TARP √
Stimulus √
Auto bailout √
Ryan voted for all of the GOP-e sugar, but finds religion wrt Obamacare.
So RINO Ryan thinks we are merely talking about DEGREES of government control????
Forget it Ryan.. we want GOVERNMENT OUT of health care, completely
It’s not supposed to be “workable”. It’s supposed to lead to a demand for single-payer.
Signing up for Obamacare is like being an informer with an invasive military force upon your homeland, like giving away information to the Germans in occupied France during WW2.
Anyone stupid enough to sign up deserves to have a massive chunk of income stripped from their earnings.
And when they tell others what they have done they will be scorned upon.
Do NOT surrender to Obamacare.
Ryan worked on a plan to cave on the government shutdown. He talks about "immigration reform" when the only reform is enforcement first. Why should I care about his opinion on other issues?
Do you really need to have that much expertise to know that central planning doesn't work?
You don't have to be an elite to know that. Common sense will tell you that when you take responsibility from the individual it spells disaster.
Yeah right
like we need you to tell us that... go away... you are of no use to us...
fyi--regarding post 18, i was referring to Paul Ryan... not Kaslin :)
Paul Ryan... isn’t he from WisCONsin?
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