Reid Ribble Visits Door County
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Reid Ribble (R – Appleton), newly elected representative of the 8th Congressional District, returned to Door County Saturday, Jan. 22 to visit with constituents.
Reid Ribble.
Ribble’s return featured stops in Brussels to attend a town hall meeting on agriculture, a visit to Ministry Door County Medical Center to meet with medical professionals, a trip on the U.S. Coast Guard’s Mobile Bay, and a meeting with the Door County Economic Development Corporation.
I caught up with Ribble briefly after his hospital visit to talk about health care reform, legislative priorities, and his first impressions of Washington D.C. Obviously the Republican effort to repeal health care reform, which he voted for, was top of mind.
“We recognize that reforms have to happen,” Ribble said. “The question is how do we shape those reforms to drive costs down. How do we eliminate the disconnect between the consumer and the seller. How can we craft a system that would move patients closer to the payment? The patient now is very much removed from the payment. It’s difficult to drive costs down when the person receiving the service isn’t actually the one making the decision on the provider.”
Ribble said his meeting with hospital officials also included talk of tort reform, a plank of Republican health care proposals.
“How can we make a system so doctors don’t practice defensive medicine so they don’t get sued.”
Shortly after arriving in Washington, Ribble and his colleagues were shocked by the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D – Arizona).
“The whole thing was shocking for me. My heart immediately went first to that little 9-year-old girl who was killed. It was like getting punched in the stomach, not because I was scared for my security, but because of the types of things that drove a person to commit that type of act. It’s difficult to protect people from someone who’s going to do that.”
Though he just arrived in the Capitol, Ribble said he believed the tragedy has affected the way Congress is operating.
“The tone in the halls is a little bit better,” he said. “But people have told me it’s always been respectful in the committee rooms, it’s in the media that people will throw the verbal bombs. I don’t think the [political] vitriol had anything to do with it, but if we can redeem what happened there by being more respectful to each other, than that’s a good outcome.”
Since his election Ribble said he’s been working to understand the federal budget and meeting with constituents continually. One of his top priorities, he said, is his appointment to the agriculture committee and “becoming an intelligent representative of our farmers.”
He said he supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s decision to scrap the high-speed rail project from Milwaukee to Madison.
“I can’t think of a single high-speed rail project anywhere in the world that functions without subsidies,” he said.
Though he conceded that all forms of transportation in the United States are heavily subsidized through highway development and public investment in airport infrastructure, he emphasized that he doesn’t think anyone would have used the high-speed rail line either.
Ribble said he would like to cut back on the regulatory authority of federal agencies.
“I believe that much of our economic situation is directly connected to over-reaching by federal agencies, so we’re working on reigning in the regulatory environment,” he said. “If a regulation is going to impact the economy by more than $100 million, it must come back to Congress for approval. This way elected officials are making the call, not hired bureaucrats.”
His first month on the job has included some surprises as well.
“Before every meeting we have at the Republican Conference, we open that session with prayer,” he said. “Every single time. The influence of religion has impressed me. There’s a little bit more expression of faith there than I expected and more than we allow in schools, so that was the surprise. I’m not making a statement good or bad, but as a man of faith I feel it’s a good thing.”
Congressman Reid Ribble
202.225.5665