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Mitt Romney: Instead of ObamaCare, I Would Require States Get Everyone Insured
The New American ^
| 05 November 2013
| Michael Tennant
Posted on 11/05/2013 8:46:08 PM PST by VitacoreVision
Mitt Romney told NBC News that if he'd been elected president, he would have replaced ObamaCare with a mandate that states guarantee that all their residents are insured.
Mitt Romney: Instead of ObamaCare, I Would Require States Get Everyone Insured
The New American
05 November 2013
Its official: If former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had been elected president in 2012, ObamaCare would still be with us, albeit in slightly modified form. Last years Republican presidential nominee told NBCs David Gregory that as president, he too would have demanded that all Americans have health insurance; but unlike President Barack Obama, he would have ordered the states, rather than the federal government, to figure out how to make that happen.
Gregory began the November 3 edition of Meet the Press with a clip from a recent speech in which Obama praised Romney for doing the right thing on healthcare when he signed the 2006 legislation mandating that all Bay Staters have insurance. That law, of course, became the prototype for ObamaCare. In crafting the federal law, the Obama administration even consulted some of Romneys former advisors.
Gregory then asked Romney why he reject[ed] Obamas compliment a good question considering that while he was still running for president and ObamaCare hadnt begun visibly imploding, Romney said he took it as a compliment that Obama had called him the grandfather of ObamaCare. Today, with Healthcare.gov barely functioning, insurance rates skyrocketing, and insurance policies being canceled left and right, Romney wants nothing to do with his grandchild.
I think the president failed to learn the lessons that came from the experience of Massachusetts, Romney said. First of all, the Massachusetts experience was a state-run plan. The right way to deal with health care reform is not to have a one-size-fits-all plan thats imposed on all the states, but recognizing the differences between different states populations, states should be able to craft their own plans to get all their citizens insured, and to make sure that preexisting conditions are covered.
Romney also pointed out that Massachusetts phased in the requirements of its healthcare law over time to prevent major problems like the ones ObamaCare is experiencing, and he chastised Obama for telling Americans that they could keep their health insurance if they liked it. I think that fundamental dishonesty has really put in peril the whole foundation of his second term, he asserted.
Clearly, the fact that Obama was not forthright about his healthcare plans effects on peoples existing insurance policies was the main talking point Romney wanted to get across in this appearance. He kept returning to it every time Gregory tried to point out the similarities between Romneycare and ObamaCare.
Romney admitted that his healthcare law had cost many Bay State residents their insurance and suggested that Obama had to have known the same thing would happen under ObamaCare but kept it from the public as indeed he did. He also confessed that health insurance is more expensive in Massachusetts than anywhere else in the country and attributed that, at least in part, to Romneycare something he was loath to do prior to last November. And youre going to see, as a result of ObamaCare, premiums going up dramatically across the country, he added. That, too, is already occurring.
Despite all these negatives not to mention the fact that Romneycare has caused such high healthcare costs in Massachusetts that the state has imposed price controls on healthcare Romney still stands by his law as the right plan for Massachusetts, and possibly for the rest of the country. For all his paeans to federalism, Romney has long said the Massachusetts law should be a model for the nation.
In 2007, as Gregory reminded him by playing the tape of his appearance, Romney said, I think youre going to find, when its all said and done, after all these states that are laboratories of democracy get their chance to try their own plans, that those who follow the path that we pursued will find its the best path, and well end up with a nation thats taken a mandate approach.
You dont believe all the states should have adopted this, but you do believe that the entire nation should take a mandate approach, Gregory said. If it was good for Massachusetts, whats so wrong with taking it national?
The obvious answer, that a federal plan similar to Massachusetts is unconstitutional, did not escape Romneys lips, but he did again say that each state should be able ... to put in place the plan that works best for them.
This at least sounds like a man who understands that the federal government has no business dictating healthcare policy to the states. Based on his answer to a subsequent question, however, that is clearly not the case.
What would you have done? Gregory asked. Had you become president in my interview with you in the course of the campaign you said there were aspects of ObamaCare that you would want to keep, preexisting conditions, et cetera. What would you have done?
Well, Im not president so I cant be so clear minded as to tell you what I would have done, Romney replied. But my own plan was to say to each state, Youve got a requirement to move to a point where all your people are insured, and where you cover preexisting conditions. Were going to give you flexibility from the federal government level to help you be able to do so.
In other words, a President Romney would have sought to replace ObamaCare with ObamaCare Lite: a law enshrining the same faulty premises and mandates as ObamaCare with a thin veneer of federalism. This, of course, is no more constitutional than ObamaCare, and its effects would be roughly the same. After all, as Romney pointed out, ObamaCares failings are the same as those of Romneycare; and by requiring states to enact some variant of Romneycare, he would have ensured that those failings were replicated in each state just as surely as Obama has.
Anyone voting for Romney last year in hopes of ridding the country of ObamaCare got snookered.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: asshat; gope; healthcare; mittromney; obamacare; rino; romneycare
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To: VitacoreVision
And the relevance is Mitt??
2
posted on
11/05/2013 8:49:02 PM PST
by
sickoflibs
(To GOP : Any path to US Citizenship IS putting them ahead in line. Stop lying about your position)
To: VitacoreVision
Oh brother.
And I love how some of us got blasted here for refusing to vote for Mitt because he wasn't “pure enuff.”
Imagine a President Mitt residing over and getting blamed for this mess
3
posted on
11/05/2013 8:49:10 PM PST
by
LMAO
("Begging hands and Bleeding hearts will only cry out for more"...Anthem from Rush)
To: VitacoreVision
4
posted on
11/05/2013 8:49:20 PM PST
by
MUDDOG
To: VitacoreVision
Armchair quarterbacking that he has been doing lately is annoying. Just seeing him this weeks makes me sorta glad we don’t have to see him everyday. 2012 was the worst choice ever.
5
posted on
11/05/2013 8:49:48 PM PST
by
napscoordinator
( Santorum-Bachmann 2016 for the future of the country!)
To: VitacoreVision
Why is this liberal all over the media? Did he write a book or something?
I really don’t need to hear what he and other liberals have to say
To: fatnotlazy
How on earth did Mitt Romney get the GOP nomination?
To: VitacoreVision
Its official: If former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had been elected president in 2012, ObamaCare would still be with us, albeit in slightly modified form. Last years Republican presidential nominee told NBCs David Gregory that as president, he too would have demanded that all Americans have health insurance; but unlike President Barack Obama, he would have ordered the states, rather than the federal government, to figure out how to make that happen....Anyone voting for Romney last year in hopes of ridding the country of ObamaCare got snookered. Ping for later
8
posted on
11/05/2013 8:52:38 PM PST
by
Alex Murphy
("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
To: VitacoreVision
That, my progressive friend, is a portion of why you lost.
9
posted on
11/05/2013 8:53:33 PM PST
by
Ingtar
(The NSA - "We're the only part of government who actually listens to the people.")
To: VitacoreVision
Yes, we knew you were Socialist-lite, Mitt. That's why you lost!!!
Not enough true, blue conservatives were willing to hold their collective noses and vote for you, so we got HIM!!!
10
posted on
11/05/2013 8:53:34 PM PST
by
zerosix
(Native Sunflower)
To: VitacoreVision
Mitt you lost ... go away.
11
posted on
11/05/2013 8:53:42 PM PST
by
doc1019
To: Ingtar
Yep, that and going soft on Benghazi
..and in fact, calling Newt a devil and Obama a nice guy.
Damn, wonder why that didn’t work?????
12
posted on
11/05/2013 8:55:05 PM PST
by
C. Edmund Wright
(Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
To: VitacoreVision
Unfortunately, Mitt, that "I would require the state....." just ain't in the Constitution, either!!!
Go back shut up!
13
posted on
11/05/2013 8:55:38 PM PST
by
zerosix
(Native Sunflower)
To: napscoordinator
“2012 was the worst choice ever.”
I think McCain was actually worse. We’d be at war with the Salvation Army, Antarctica, and perhaps Narnia.
14
posted on
11/05/2013 8:56:55 PM PST
by
EEGator
To: VitacoreVision
“How on earth did Mitt Romney get the GOP nomination?”
***
Rigging of the primaries by the liberal GOP hierarchy.
To: VitacoreVision
Mitt Romney told NBC News that if he'd been elected president, he would have replaced ObamaCare with a mandate that states guarantee that all their residents are insured. Excuse me JackA$$ Progre$$ive Politicians, how is “mandate” different from “dictate”?
16
posted on
11/05/2013 8:57:23 PM PST
by
Chgogal
(Obama "hung the SEALs out to dry, basically exposed them like a set of dog balls..." CMH)
To: VitacoreVision
How on earth did Mitt Romney get the GOP nomination?By being the least conservative of the supposedly viable candidates. That's how the GOP chooses their nominee every presidential election.
17
posted on
11/05/2013 8:57:34 PM PST
by
Junior_G
(Funny how liberals' love affair with Muslims began on 9/11)
To: VitacoreVision
Thanks for sharing Mitt, now go away.
I guess that States Rights thing is a problem nowadays.
It's the only thing that separates us from the Bolsheviks.
18
posted on
11/05/2013 8:58:17 PM PST
by
Kickass Conservative
(Good news, Federal Funding for my Tagline has been restored. Crisis averted.)
To: VitacoreVision
Where’s all the Free Republic cheerleaders for Mittens, especially NOW that we DON’T need you?
19
posted on
11/05/2013 8:58:38 PM PST
by
freepersup
(Patrolling the waters off Free Republic one dhow at a time.)
To: VitacoreVision
20
posted on
11/05/2013 8:59:01 PM PST
by
JohnBrowdie
(http://forum.stink-eye.net)
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