Rubio hits all the hot topics: Obamacare, education and college debt

By Jesse Farthing

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio expressed his desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act today during a roundtable meeting with local business owners, though he did admit that America has a health care problem. Rubio did not elaborate on how he plans to go forward with his plan to repeal the law.

“In think, in an effort to solve a problem, this law probably fails to do that in many respects and creates a bunch of other ones as well,” Rubio said to the roundtable group. “I hope that we can do two things at once here: one is that we can at minimum delay – but my hope is that we can repeal this law, but we can also replace it because we do have a health insurance problem in America, and that does need to be confronted.”

Uncertainty was the word of the day during the roundtable discussion, the last stop of Rubio’s tour of Northwest Florida before he heads home. Uncertainty about what costs the ACA will create for business owners, uncertainty within businesses to grow, uncertainty that Rubio says is holding businesses back in terms of hiring new employees and holding others back from starting new businesses.

State Farm agent and newly elected Republican state Representative Mike Hill hosted the event at State Farm’s offices a short distance from Sacred Heart Hospital.

“My concern is that the intended or unintended consequences of this law are creating extraordinary uncertainty in the business community,” Rubio said. “And as a result I have met people who have told me they will not hire more people because of the law.”

Rubio heard from several Pensacola business owners who echoed his concerns of uncertainty regarding what costs the ACA, also known as Obamacare, will create.

“I think there’s still a lot of uncertainty out there on what Obamacare is going to bring to the table for large employers,” Debbie Calder, President of Navy Federal, said. “There hasn’t been a lot of discussion.”

Not everyone attending the meeting was completely onboard with Rubio’s wishes to repeal the ACA.

“We’re the ones who are caring for the uninsured today for free,” Jules Kariher, of the Sacred Heart Health System, said during her opening statement. “This is one of the highest uninsured areas in the state of Florida. We supported the Affordable Care Act by paying for it through our Disproportionate Share payments that are now being taken away from us at the same time that Florida has chosen not to take the dollars. We recognize that it is flawed, but we’re huge supporters of finding some sort of insurance that’s affordable for the uninsured. And if it’s not Obamacare, we hope that you’ll come to us with a plan that works and helps these folks get insurance.”

Though the majority of the hour-long meeting revolved around the ACA and insurance costs, with Rubio asking each business leader how much their insurance premiums have gone up and how much they expect the ACA to raise them next year and trying to get a sense of what the impact would be, he did touch on education reform at the end.

“I am a strong proponent of curriculum reform,” he said. “I think our curriculum needs to reflect the 21st century, but I also believe that that should be handled at the state and local levels, and the reason why is because curriculum reform should be very sensitive to the particular community.”

Rubio said that he is a strong proponent of career education and that the country should not stigmatize it because, he said, being an electrician or fixing airplanes are just as important job-wise as jobs gained from four-year degrees. He also addressed the affordability of a college education.

“It used to be that a college education was a ticket to a better job,” Rubio said. “Now, for many Americans, a college education is a ticket to 20 or 30 years of debt. The average student loan is now at $40,000 a year.”

Rubio added that he owed $100,000 when he graduated. “Which I paid off by writing a book, which is available now in paperback,” he quipped.