Governor Rick Perry sat down with Forbes contributor Avik Roy last week, chatting about tort reform, Obamacare, and what Republicans need to push — healthcare-wise – in 2016. Roy was a Romney advisor, so take the questions and answers with a grain of salt:
On tort reform:
But good, courageous people have stayed hitched, if you will, to the concept [of innovation]. And they paid great dividends. So whether it was passing tort reform, putting tax policy, regulatory policy in place, that sent a predictable, stable message to innovators and job creators, that this was a state where you could come and risk your capital and have a good chance to have a return on your investment.
I think that is the underlying foundation that you must have in your state. Innovators are entrepreneurs. And if you don’t first give them clear messages of predictability and stability, then they may not stay in your state. So we first had to create the environment where innovators knew that they would get support from the state, that the state had “skin in the game,” so to speak.
On Obamacare, and its implementation in Texas:
So on its face, Obamacare may fail because they don’t have the expertise nor the money. And they’re trying to push this off on the states. And I think wise governors and wise legislatures will say, “No, thank you.” Medicaid is a broken system. And the idea that we would expand and put more money and more people into a broken system is not unlike putting another 1,000 people on the Titanic. You know how this is going to turn out. And it’s going to be a disaster.
