Obamacare and Tax Reform: Interview with Charlie Rose

Obamacare and Tax Reform: Interview with Charlie Rose

January 19, 2017

Speaker Ryan Press Office

Summary: Last night, Speaker Ryan sat down with Charlie Rose for an hour-long interview to discuss some of the main priorities of the 115th Congress, including repealing and replacing Obamacare and tax reform.

Key Quote: "Obamacare is built on a house of sand that is quickly collapsing. So we want to take those resources and direct them toward what we think is smarter replacement policy."

Obamacare "Obamacare is built on a house of sand that is quickly collapsing. So we want to take those resources and direct them toward what we think is smarter replacement policy.... We think health savings accounts can help people with the problems they have for under deductible spending. We think the smarter way to help people with a preexisting condition is just directly subsidize their care through risk pools.... And by doing it that way, the rest of the pools of Americans don't have to cover those losses, and we dramatically stabilize the insurance rates and premiums for everybody else. So by having taxpayers, I think, step up and focus on, through risk pools, subsidizing the care for people with catastrophic illnesses, those losses don't have to be covered by everybody else and we stabilize their plans.

"We also think that a refundable tax credit is a smarter way to give people the ability to go buy insurance that they like that they can afford. That's better than the subsidies, and we think--a refundable tax credit means you get assistance regardless of your income tax liability to buy care. But we want more insurance competition, we want more choices. That's why we want things like interstate shopping--let insurance compete across state lines. We have a lizard selling us car insurance on Geico. We have Flo selling us home and auto insurance. Why can't we have a vibrant, better marketplace like that for health insurance?"

Tax Reform "We want to encourage businesses to invest in this country, to build factories and buy equipment in this country, and put us on a level playing field with the rest of the world. So that if you make it in America, you keep it in America, and you sell it all around the world. And we want to have a system that rewards that and doesn't punish that, and that's the primary purpose of tax reform. So why are we trying to do that" Grow the economy, grow wages, more jobs, higher wages--that's what we're trying to accomplish."

"So let me describe [border adjustability] really clearly: The rest of the world has consumption taxes, so when they make something in their country and they sell it overseas, they take the tax off of it. And then, when something comes in from overseas to their country, they tax it. We do the exact opposite. If we're making--let's just take Harley Davidson in Milwaukee--we make a Harley motorcycle in Milwaukee, we tax it. We tax it if it's going to be ridden in Wisconsin, and we tax it if it's going to be sold into Japan. So it's taxed as it leaves and it's taxed as it enters into Japan. Let's take Honda--they make a gold wing, it's a motorcycle that competes with the Harley--Honda makes this motorcycle, and if it's going to go to America, they take the tax off of it because it's being exported. And then, as it comes into America, it's not taxed. So there are things untaxed twice. Our motorcycle is taxed twice."