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Ohio Sens. Portman and Brown Hope for Further Reform in ACA Replacement Plans

Both of Ohio’s U.S. senators say they still think it’s possible for Congress to come up with a plan to fix problems with the Affordable Health Care Act.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman says changes are needed to make sure everyone has access to medical care through insurers; 19 Ohio counties lack an insurer providing plans for the individualized market and more than two-dozen others have just one insurer.

But Portman says he can’t support a repeal without a replacement, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested.

"I would not support just having a repeal vote if that’s all that he is going to offer but I don’t think that’s what is going to happen."

Sen. Sherrod Brown says he and some other Democrats would like to work with Portman and other Republicans to come up with a plan to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act "that would rein in abusive drug company practices, that would bring young healthy people into the insurance pool, which will help stabilize prices."

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.