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Ryan confident Obama healthcare reform will die
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday predicted that the Supreme Court will strike down the healthcare reform law’s individual mandate, and exuded confidence that, in any case, the law will be repealed and replaced in 2013.
Ryan said Justice Anthony Kennedy is the key vote on the issue and that the only cliffhanger is whether the entire reform will be struck down or just the mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. Kennedy often serves as the swing vote in close Supreme Court decisions.
“I think [the court] will knock down the individual mandate,” Ryan said at the Washington Ideas Forum. “The question is of severability.”
Ryan said companies will make it clear that they will dump employees into the state health insurance exchanges that start in 2014, overwhelming the exchanges. Also prompting repeal, he said, will be fears over the Independent Payment Advisory Board tasked with proposing Medicare payment cuts to providers if healthcare spending grows too fast.
“It is a house of cards,” he said.
Ryan said he believes universal healthcare can be achieved through portable tax credits for individuals and by making it automatic for individuals to enroll in the system. Other changes such as tort reform would control costs.
Ryan was asked whether he can support GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts enacted a statewide healthcare reform law with an individual mandate.
“We should not have a 15-point litmus test to be in our party,” Ryan said. He said the GOP needs to rally around “big tent” ideas like economic liberty and deficit reduction and realize there are differences on other issues.
Ryan did say, however, that Romney does not have the nomination locked up and that the race is very much alive for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
