Wisconsin governor remains defiant on health care law
WASHINGTON -- Even if the nation's high court upholds the health care reform law, Gov. Scott Walker's administration would then pin its hopes of evading the law's reform mandates on the outcome of the presidential and Senate elections in November, the governor said Thursday.
A week after repelling a recall attempt to oust him from office, a defiant Walker said he firmly believes the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and that's why one of his first acts as governor was to ask the Wisconsin attorney general to join a lawsuit by states to overturn the law as a matter of principle.
"I don't read anywhere in the Constitution that defines the federal government demanding health insurance on me and my family," Walker said. "If you can mandate health care, you can mandate anything on the states. You might as well strike out the 10th Amendment."
Speaking to reporters over scrambled eggs and sausages, Walker said most of the 26 states involved in the lawsuit, "are going to wait" until after the elections before addressing provisions in the health care law if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds it. The court is expected to rule by the end of June.
Republicans are hoping they can capture full control of Congress, where they now have a majority in the House of Representatives, and the White House to give them the clout to repeal the health care law through legislation.
The crux of the case before the court is the requirement that every American have health insurance. A key component of the mandate is a state exchange, a marketplace for insurance plans, states must establish by October 2013. States must have a plan for the exchanges by November.
Wisconsin is one of 12 states that have taken no action on exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. If states choose not to set up an exchange, the federal government takes on that responsibility.
Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, said Wisconsin consumers would be the losers if the Supreme Court sanctions the healthcare reform law and Walker continues to stall on its implementation.
"It's a highly irresponsible position," Kraig said. "The competitive marketplace the exchanges are going to create is going to make healthcare much more affordable. He's playing politics with people's lives and their health."
Walker said he agrees with the law's provision regarding portability of insurance plans across state lines and coverage guarantees, but he said those reform measures should be left to the states. Walker said he would push for more transparency in insurance plans so consumers can know exactly what they're getting and how much it costs.
Following a day in which he participated in a job-creation discussion with a handful of other governors at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walker hit on several issues Thursday as he responded to a range of questions from reporters.
He said in retrospect he regrets not having held public forums to explain the reason for taking some of the actions he took at the outset of his administration, such as stripping public employee unions of most of their collective bargaining rights.
"Most politicians talk about (a problem) and never fix it," Walker said. "What I've learned is you got to do both. You got to talk about it, get people engaged, get people to understand the problem."
Walker said he disagreed with former Florida governor Jeb Bush's conclusion that the Republican Party has veered so far to the right that even Ronald Reagan would be unacceptable to the conservative wing. He also disagreed with Bush's support for a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases to fix the nation's fiscal problems.
Walker called it "a false choice between raising taxes and cutting services. I just don't believe that the problem with government is that we don't tax enough."
Walker took a couple of swipes at his predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle, saying the previous administration raided the transportation fund of more than $1 billion and spent most of the federal stimulus money sent to Wisconsin on "bailing out the state government."
"It's part of the reason I had a $3.6 billion hole to begin with," the governor said.
Wisconsin Democrats scoffed at Walker's remarks. "Walker has … made the structural deficit worse than the one he inherited, all the while making Wisconsin the nation's leader in job loss," said Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski. "His is a record of shame and not one to crow about."
When asked whom he thought would be the best vice presidential pick for presumptive GOP 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, Walker named House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Janesville. He said Ryan would be the ideal partner if Romney's goal is ending the fiscal crisis.
Walker also had some advice for Romney to win in Wisconsin.
Walker said the former Massachusetts governor, should follow the model Reagan set 32 years ago when he defeated Democratic President Jimmy Carter's bid for a second term. Walker said Romney needs to fine tune his message on the economy and budget issues and share his vision for America.
As an example of the type of message Romney needs, Walker recalled one of Reagan's 1980 campaign lines: "Recession is when your neighbor doesn't have a job. Depression is when you don't have a job, and recovery is when President Carter doesn't have a job."
"Great lines like that got people's attention," Walker said. Romney has to "have a simple message about why we need to replace the current occupant of the White House."
The Wisconsin governor said Romney's camp and Republicans across the country would be making a mistake to view his victory last week as a harbinger of GOP success in the fall.
"If Gov. Romney thinks he can win this race just because he has an 'R' by his name and I have an 'R' by my name and voters see that as just about being Republican, that's not enough to win," Walker said. "The way he wins is that voters see that 'R' not as being Republican but as being reformer, that here's a candidate who has a clear, bold plan to get us out of the economic crisis our country is in."