Northeast Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan is already looking to the future when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. He says it's not perfect, and lawmakers need to sit down and find ways to fix it.
More than 200 people attended Ryan's town hall at the University of Akron on Saturday, a day after House Republicans backed away from voting on a replacement for Obamacare.
'His plan was going to throw 24 million people off of healthcare; we're trying to get people onto healthcare. And we need the president to be an adult and sit down and work with us.'
Ryan says one of the reasons for that may be the public response lawmakers got from constituents. President Trump said he plans to wait for Obamacare to explode, but Ryan says that’s not a good idea, either.
“For those people who, maybe the Affordable Care Act was not working for, now you’re punishing them.
"Let’s sit down and help them. His plan was going to throw 24 million people off of healthcare; we’re trying to get people onto healthcare. And we need the president to be an adult and sit down and work with us.”
Ryan is also looking to next year’s mid-term elections, saying voters in Northeast Ohio need to get more involved in the process to help his party recapture the House. He said Democrats cannot just be the anti-President Trump party, and he used the Republicans’ wins last year as an example.
“They campaigned on just being against Obama. That was all they campaigned on, right? And then when they got in, they don’t even know what to do -- because they spent the last seven years being anti-Obama. I don’t want to spend the next few years just being anti-Trump, and then we get in and are like, ‘OK, now what do we do?’”
Ryan said one of the things he would like to do is expand broadband throughout the country, which he believes would create jobs for installers and help communities attract businesses.
