On Fox Business, Portman Discusses Health Care, Tax Reform

During an interview today on Fox Business, Senator Portman discussed the need to reform our health care system and tax code to provide relief to Ohio families. Portman has been outspoken on the need to lower costs and improve health care options as well as the need to reform our broken tax code to make American more competitive, create more jobs, and raise wages to help ease the middle-class squeeze.

Transcript of the interview can be found below and you can watch the interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mll5OxB-eow.

Ashley Webster: "I'm joined now by Republican Senator from Ohio, Rob Portman. Senator, thank you for joining us. Can you go over there and knock some of these House GOP members' heads together, come on, get on the same page? We are getting down to the wire. It's probably going to come down to the wire. Can the House get this thing done?"

Senator Portman: "Ashley, I think they can. There is an overwhelming sense among Republicans that the status quo is not acceptable and it needs to be replaced, but obviously the question is how. And I think the House ultimately will probably get the votes. Then it comes over here to the Senate. There will be changes made in the Senate. Already, there is discussion of taking some of the House provisions that were met as a placeholder and filling those out further, particularly to help those who are currently getting a tax credit who are between age 50 and 64, but maybe not an adequate one. Some of the House funding that they have put in the bill could be used for that. A concern I have is on this issue of the heroin, prescription drug, fentanyl, the opioid issue. It turns out that those folks who are on expanded Medicaid and for that matter traditional Medicaid, their substance abuse treatment is currently being paid under Medicaid and expanded Medicaid, to an extent frankly that is very concerning if it is not handled right. I think there are ways to get there. I'm ultimately optimistic we will get there but it may take a little while."

Webster: "As always the devil is in the details, Senator, but do you think the GOP, the Freedom Caucus on the House side, is anyone in the GOP willing to just walk away from this whole thing and leave Obamacare in place?"

Portman: "Well that would be a bad thing for the people I represent in Ohio. We've seen our premiums spike. We've gone up 91 percent in the individual market in the last four years. We've gone up 82 percent for small businesses. Double-digit increases again for this next year. It's just not sustainable. And then of course you have the situation of the market not working where you have insurance companies pulling out of these exchanges to the point that now, all of sudden in Ohio, a third of our counties have only one insurer which is not choice or competition. So I think that something has to be done. By the way if Hillary Clinton had been elected as president and a Democrat Senate had been elected, we would be facing the same problems. It is collapsing of its own weight. So there have to be reforms."

Webster: "You're a Senate Finance Committee member. You're a former director of the OMB. Senator, I want a tax cut and I want it now, but so many people say that. Should we have not done tax cuts first and then deal with the quagmire that is Obamacare and its replacement after the tax cuts? Or is that just 20/20 hindsight?"

Portman: "Actually I think that is more 20/20. Tax reform is also necessary, also challenging because there are winners and losers in any tax reform. But what a great opportunity. Our code is in such bad shape that anything we do to try to make it more efficient, to take away some of the disincentives to invest, and save and create jobs will be very helpful for the economy, so I'm excited about that. I think we have an opportunity to deal with a current structure where we're sending jobs and investment overseas and instead make the United States a magnet for more investment and jobs here. And I think we can simplify the code in ways that everybody benefits from. The only people who might not like it are the tax lawyers. But other than that, getting compliance costs down is a good thing. The tax code is full of great potential for reform. We have to do that. That probably will be done after health care, probably as a late spring, summer project. Maybe into the fall. This is something that will really give the economy a shot in the arm."

Webster: "Could the health care battle trip that up?"

Portman: "Well I don't think so. I think health care will be resolved one way or the other in the next few weeks. We'll see how it goes. I think ultimately we'll get to a solution. I hope we'll get to one that actually ensures we have a result that's more sustainable over time, that gets the rates down but also ensures we're not leaving people behind, that we're not pulling the rug out from under people who need this care. Particularly, again, with this crisis we have with the opioids around the country. My home state of Ohio has been hit particularly hard there. And we rely on expanded Medicaid in particular for that treatment. There are ways to be sure that that can be fixed. It is not really in my view part of the core of Obamacare. The core of Obamacare is mandates, regulations, the new taxes. All of that can be dealt with here in the next few days."

Read this original document at: https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7EC50D4F-5A3E-46A0-82F7-ECF0DC2DF7A2