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Ryan: Repeal of health care law possible, but not until 2013

During a recent interview with the CSI Media editorial board, Rep. Paul Ryan said repeal of health care legislation remains a possibility. Terry Mayer/staff.

DELAVAN — The new 2,400-page federal health care law can be repealed, according to U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, but opponents will have to wait until at least 2013 to do it.

Ryan, a Janesville Republican who saw his political star rise throughout the debate over the landmark legislation, discussed health care and other issues Monday in a meeting with the CSI Media editorial board in Delavan.

(Watch video of the interview HERE.)

“For a repeal to actually occur, that’s a heavy lift,” he said. “You’ve got to have a Congress that can do it — a majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate, and have a president willing to sign a repeal. That’s obviously not this president. So, the planets have to align themselves in 2013 for that to happen.”

In order for the new law to be “fiscally responsible,” Ryan added, health care will have to be rationed, thus putting the federal government, not individuals, in control of important health care decisions.

“Brits, French, Germans, Canadians — they may be comfortable with that idea, but it sort of offends our sensibilities as Americans,” he said. “My mother-in-law is alive today and has been for five years because she has this drug called Avastin to treat ovarian cancer. Well, if you’re Canadian or British, you can’t get it. They won’t let you have it. That’s not the kind of system we want in America.

“We don’t want government bureaucrats telling us how we’re going to get our health care, and setting up all these formulas to tell us what our doctor can and cannot do when we need help, no matter how old we are.”

Ryan says he has a plan for other issues, too.

With Medicare obligations totaling $38 trillion, Ryan proposes an overhaul of that program in his Roadmap for America’s Future, a wide-ranging policy paper that has attracted considerable attention in political and media circles. He would leave the current plan untouched for those 55 and older, but for everyone else, he’d offer an option similar to his own congressional health plan.

Read the full story in the April 25, 2010 e-edition of Walworth County Sunday, HERE.

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