GOP Sen. Ron Johnson: Obamacare will lead to rationing, lower quality of care

>>> welcoming with open arms , i think the president is tremendously sincere, i don't think this is just a political change in tactic, i think he actually would like to solve the problems of the country and it would be to his benefit and certainly every american's benefit if he did that. it ask time to start leading and the way you do that is stop poking your finger in people's eyes and he has a chance to accomplish a big deal .

>> tom coburn , republican senator from oklahoma on tape, but right here, live, we have republican senator from wisconsin, senator ron johnson . upset during the commercial break because mark halperin asked you a very good question.

>> ask it again. dressing room fighter.

>> what is your position on daylight savings time ?

>> i'm for it across the board. i like having more daylight.

>> talking a lot about bipartisanship and the chance of a compromise. you said there needs to be leadership. one of the big issues now can there be coalitions in the senate. i asked you which democratic senators do you feel you can work with to try to forge deals, not just on budget issues but on everything?

>> let's face it. i think people like mark warner , joe manchin , claire mccaskill , her ranking member on oversight committee, tom carper is very serious about making sure the government effective and efficient. there are people, but we have to begin the process. that's really what the president did last week. he began that process but just a first step. the next step, we have to agree on the facts and figures. i get on these shows, you argue back and forth yoorks want to arguen at facts and figures. you have to first spend a fair amount of time. what i learned in business negotiations, rather than argue about what you disagree on, first, figure out what you agree on, first that process, you develop the relationship, you develop the trust, once you get those disagreements, a lot easier to come to resolutions.

>> your fellow home state member of congress, paul ryan , still seems to say we got to get rid of obama care. do you accept that obama care is law of the land , going gorn nah be phased in and whatever deals are struck are with the assumption that it is here to say?

>> i'm concerned about it. i think the cost estimate of obama care is grossly understated. i think far morer americans are going to lose their employer-sponsored care, employers drop the coverage and make their employers eligible for huge substances and exchanges. this is lead to rationing, lower quality of care. here is the basic economic problem .

>> why will it a lead to rationing?

>> increases the demand for health care , 30 million americans getting health care through a medicare process reduces the supply that san economic disaster , taking $716 out of payments to providers, reducing supply, increasing demand that doesn't lower the cost curve that increase the cost curve .

>> just to stay on health kay, lots of big issues, do you aspire to have a -- live in a country with universal health care is that a goal of yours?

>> i aspire to health care being governed more by free market competitive system. i use the example of one area of health care that generally isn't covered by a third party payer or governments is eyeglasses. feet market produced businesses that you can walk off the street, get eyeglasses for -- in an hour, two for the price of one and take a look at the quality of laser surgery , gone up, the price has gone down a lot, ten years. feet market system is a marvel in terms of guaranteeing the lowest possible price and cost, the highest possible level quality of customer service u

>> yes or no, do you aspire for the united states to have universal health care coverage?

>> i want everybody to be able to access health care acre fordable health care , you do that through the free market , not government control. we moved in the wrong direction that way.

>> what do you look for people look fork eyeglasses who just can't afford eyeglasses?

>> we are a compassioned society we want a strong social safety net . the problem is, mike, how do you design that strong social safety net without incentivizing people to take advantage of it that really shouldn't be taking advantage of it? when you have gone from 17 million people on food stamps in the year 2000 to 47 million in -- 12 years later, i think you have a problem, particularly when you're running deficits i the last four years, 5.1 trillion. do you know what we are dog our children? here is the point i was trying to make i do not know a parent that would willingly drive up their debt, max out their credit calleds, never intending to pay it off, just dump that off on their kids and grandkids, yet collectively that is exactly what we are doing to our children. it is utterly immoral. we have to come to terms with that, start reforming these prom promises, these program we have made to people, try and honor them but recognize we don't have the capability of paying for them wet mortgaging our children's future.

>> one of the things i always wonder about, we talking about def circuits why don't we hear more about how to grow, solutions for --

>> i totally agree.

>> we think about history, it is not so much the size of the debt but how fast we are growing. in the clinton era, we grew out of debt. what can we do to get out of the 2% economy?

>> don't increase taxes on small to medium-sized business people . everying we do in washington i agree totally should be targeted toward economic growth . here are just a couple of numbers. even with the meager economic growth we have had from 2009 to 2012 , revenue to the federal government has increased by $344 billion per year. if we just return to arm noal economy like 2007 , the government collected 18.5% of gdp in revenue, a little bit more than the 50-year average that would add another $435 billion billion per year. mike, you were talking about repatriating those corporate earnings, $42 billion. the fiscal cliff deal will raise about $41 billion. that's tenth of what we can get through economic growth . i totally agree, republicans talk about economic growth but you get mired down into the detailed policy, the punishing success doesn't work.

>> senator, on that point, donny deutsch and i got into this it this morning about the messaging of the gop he was making the argument we are largely top down, care more about the rich guy than the little guy. my argument was that we have fundamentally been in a position i think over a long time talking about the power of small business owners and keeping that community oriented growth from the bottom up. how do you respond to the noise and the clamor about republicans being out of touch and focus more on tax cuts for the rich billionaires and million snanchts we are not in a position where we can cut taxes just trying to not to penalize their success e i'm one of the small to medium-sized business people . i note incentives what makes me do things, what prevents me from things. i'm concerned before he american. we want a prosperous america, every american to be able to build a good life for themselves and their families but you do that by making sure we have a robust economy so the people have the dignity of being able to get a job and you don't have that when you continue to grow government. you can get government jobs but those aren't self-sustaining.

>> off of former chairman steele's comments now about message, you mentioned food stamps a few moments ago. if you've lost your job in the last ten years, if you haven't received a raise in the last eight years and you've got three or four kids and you're a middle income family, food stamps , you're gonna go to food stamps that accounts for a huge percent of the growth in food stamps , i would think. why is it that a lot of republicans refuse to drop, like scratching a sore, food stamps rather than dropping the hammer on overseas.

>> rather than tinker around the edges, let's scrap the entire tax code , let's start from a clean piece of paper and let's build a tax code that raises the revenue we need and does no economic harm. in terms of food stamps , generally, those -- the number of americans , percentage of americans on food stamps range somewhere between 6 and 10%. we are up to about 15%. something has gone off kilter here. and again, you know, i'm not saying let's not help those that need help. we want to help those folks. but what can we afford? we have to taken a honest assessment of, you know, social security . here's a little chart . it drives me crazy when people say social security is solvent through 2035 or 2038 . it's not. the next 20 years, social security will pay out $5.1 trillion more in benefits than it takes in payroll tax . this isn't a sustainable system. medicare is worse. the liabilities in the federal government , you know, just medicare , social security , our debt and what we owe federal retirees is larger than the private net asset base in the united states . all assets held by small businesses , large business and household this is a problem. and so, the other point i made to the president was if we are going to solve these problems, we have to build relationship, we have to build trust but we have to agree on the numbers. and we have to spend a lot of time going mere are the facts. the facts don't lime the president has a perfect flat form, let the american people note ex-tent of the problem. one of the points he made, americans pay $1 into care, get more than $3 out. a message only the president can really breakthrough and let the american people know b.

>> a good meal and you didn't have to pay for t.

>> senator ron johnson , a hopeful message for the president. thank you.

>> thank you.

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