Here & Now

Whereas your opponent calls Obamacare a massive consumer fraud and chides you for voting at it, voting for it, this is in the face of Wisconsin not being alone in looking at some pretty significant premium hikes in the Affordable Care Act exchange plans apparently because young people haven't signed up in the numbers that was expected but so Ron Johnson calls it massive consumer fraud. How would you describe the ACA as it's developed since its passage? Unlike Senator Johnson I didn't take a blind view that there's no possibility something good would come out of this. The fact is a great deal of good has come out of it. And it would be incredibly foolish to repeal Obamacare as he's suggesting. Twenty million people are now covered who were not covered before. Now that's great for them, but it's also great for the rest of us because those individuals are not coming in as charity care to the hospitals in a much sicker way, in a much more expensive way. People can now make sure they can get on insurance without being cut off for pre-existing condition. You have a child who is in college, and even a little bit beyond. They can stay on their parents insurance til they're beyond 26 years old. If you have a mental health issue in your family, there's now mental health coverage. So these are all very positive things. Some of the cost increases in the last few years were much less than were expected. That happened in the early years. Some of the increases now may be somewhat higher. So we need to all work together to make it even more affordable. But the reality is it's moving in the right direction and Senator Johnson's just living in the past. He just wants to uproot the whole thing because he's got a bee in his bonnet about this thing instead of being willing to work on a bipartisan basis. How can we get together and do more to make it better? I've met with the medical society here. I've met with radiologists. I've met with rural hospital leaders such the people that have the Monroe Clinic. I've met with all these individuals. And they have very solid ideas. For example, right now you can be evaluated for your eligibility for the Affordable Care Act based on being an individual. But that's called the 'family glitch' because often you have a family and you want to be eligible based on your whole family. So what I would do if I was elected is sit down and say, "Ok, what are the things we need to improve this and make it more affordable?" as opposed to trying to destroy the whole thing which is what Senator Johnson hopes to do.