House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Monday he is encouraging every senator to vote for Republicans’ new health care bill, calling the plan from Republican Sens.
Paul Ryan Lindsey Graham Bill Cassidy
“We hope the Senate does pass Graham-Cassidy. We’re encouraged by the development of Graham-Cassidy,” Ryan said at a town hall-style event at the Harley-Davidson facility in Menomonee Falls, Wis. “And I am encouraging every senator to vote for Graham-Cassidy, because it is our best, last chance to get repeal and replace done.
“And I do believe it is a far greater improvement over the status quo,” the Speaker continued. “I’ll take [the] federalism of Graham-Cassidy over a collapsing ObamaCare system any day.”
Ryan shepherded an ObamaCare repeal and replace bill through the House chamber earlier in May, but GOP senators saw their own health bill go down in flames this past summer.
With a Sept. 30 budget “reconciliation” deadline fast approaching, GOP senators are rallying behind the new effort. John McCain
At the Harley-Davidson event on tax reform, Ryan also told reporters he was very concerned about a new report that credit reporting firm Equifax knew about a major hack of its computer systems months before it disclosed the breach to the public.
The company said the March breach was not related to the hack that exposed personal and financial data of more than 140 million Americans.
“First, I think we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of what happened with Equifax and to see if there are gaps in laws and regulations that need to be filled,” Ryan said, noting that the House Energy and Commerce and Financial Services committees will be holding hearings soon on Equifax.
“In this 21st century, with cyber attacks and technology, we’re clearly going to have privacy issues. We’re clearly going to have cyber issues. And the question is what can we do to always stay ahead of the problem to prevent these things from happening again.”
