Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) responded to the surprise among some in the media that the GOP budget includes the repeal of Obamacare Wednesday on "Morning Joe."
The Chairman of the House Budget Committee explained his fundamental belief that Obamacare will "collapse under its own weight" and it is incumbent on the GOP to offer alternatives:
HAROLD FORD: I'm doing well, two quick questions. One, Steny Hoyer was on Joe and Mika's show a few weeks back, and identified raising the carried interest, ridding ourselves of that and limiting deductions for mortgages, charitable and so forth at 28%. Is that something you could find yourself to agreeing to if you were able to get some of the spending cuts and, two, is there anything in Obamacare that has worked in your mind, in your eyes some you're one of the most skilled thinkers on the budget and particularly healthcare. Is there something working you might be able to embrace and Republicans might be able to embrace to move this process forward?
PAUL RYAN: First point on the tax spend expenditures you talked about. We see that as a necessary part of tax reform. So all of those things you mentioned to me are fair game in tax reform. See we see tax reform as an economic growth generating exercise, not as a revenue generating exercise to fuel more spending. You have to understand, Harold, we want to have a competitive tax code to create jobs and growth and to be competitive internationally competitive and in order to bring those tax rates down so that they're competitive, so we can have a faster economic growth you need those loopholes to do that. So we don't want to take these loopholes and use it to pay for spending, we want it to bring rates down. On the Obamacare thing, look. Exchanges at the state level are something we have always been talking about. Tom Coburn and I had a bill during the Obamacare deliberation. I think they have kind of messed up the idea of exchanges but the idea from conservative standpoint is a revived idea that can work. The other thing is high risk pools. They screwed up the high risk pools and didn't work in Obamacare but there's a way of making high risk pools can work from our minds to make sure that people with preexisting conditions can get affordable health insurance. So we think there were concepts in that law were pretty much destroyed but if you could revise those things in an effort of replacing the law - look Harold, I mean this when I say this, I think this law is going to collapse under its own weight. I don't think the millions of Americans [who] are going to have a rude awakening of losing the health insurance they have at their jobs are going to be happy, I don't think people are going to like the denied access they get when medicare and medicaid providers continually deny people access to care. This thing is going to be a budget buster. I don't think it's going to be a popular law and I think the country will be asking for alternatives and it's our job to offer them.
Full interview: