Paul Ryan Net Worth: Healthcare Plan Architect Worth Millions

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been busy on Capitol Hill pushing the House GOP's healthcare plan. Conservative critics criticized the plan as "Obamacare lite" and opponents across the aisle described the bill as a giant tax cut for the rich, a group that can count Ryan as one of their own, based on the congressman's net worth.

According to federal financial disclosures for 2015, the most recent available, Ryan claimed total assets worth between $3 and $10.9 million. The wide range between those two numbers is a feature of the way members of Congress are required to disclose their assets. They don't have to submit a specific value for individual assets, only a range.

Ryan, 47, was elected to Congress in 1998 when he was only 28 years old, and has seen sharp growth to his net worth over the years. In 2001, federal disclosure forms said Ryan had assets valued at between $479,000 and $5 million, the Seattle Times reported. In 2012, when Ryan was a member of the Republican ticket with presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the Times said the Wisconsin native was worth between $2.1 million and $7.8 million.

Ryan's net worth is higher than most of his colleagues. In 2015, the Center for Responsive Politics said the median net worth for members of congress was $1,029,505 in 2013.

Ryan has spent the majority of his adult life in politics and his wealth is mostly a combination of family money and savvy investments, including a large bet on Home Depot. Ryan comes from a prominent clan of successful attorneys and his wife also comes from wealth. Janna Ryan's grandfather, Reuel Winfred Little, was a self-made millionaire who created a fortune by inventing a type of injector used to poison trees and made separate fortunes in legal work, the redevelopment of military housing and the oil and gas industries, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2010, Janna Ryan inherited between $1 million and $5 million after her mother died.

In spite of publicly declaring a change of heart in his views on the poor in 2016, Ryan has made little attempt at addressing poverty and uninsured Americans since unveiling the House's healthcare plan. In an interview Wednesday with conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson, Ryan evaded talk that his plan would help the rich.

"Kind of a hard sell to say, 'Yeah, we’re gonna repeal Obamacare but we’re gonna send more money to the people who’ve already gotten the richest over the last 10 years,’" Carlson asked Ryan. "I mean, that’s what this does, no?"

Ryan, a strong proponent of tax reform, maintained his stance on healthcare and taxes. "I’m not concerned about it because we said we were gonna repeal all the Obamacare taxes, this is one of the Obamacare taxes," Ryan said. "The other point is, this dramatically helps tax reform."