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Romney’s First Plan as President: Nix Obamacare

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Posted on May 11, 2011
Wikimedia Commons/Jessica Rinaldi (CC-BY)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is doing some damage control on his health-care-related past.

Demonstrating that peculiar Republican penchant for believing that the free market solves all that ails our nation, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney proclaimed in an Op-Ed on Wednesday that he’d do away with the current president’s hard-won health care legislation if he were to take Obama’s place after the 2012 election.

But how does this hard-line promise jibe with Romney’s own past experience with health care reform, or shall we call it Romneycare? FactCheck.org has some answers here. —KA

Mitt Romney in USA Today:

My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ObamaCare’s top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ObamaCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ObamaCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and value.

If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare.

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By omop, May 12, 2011 at 1:05 pm Link to this comment

The US Constitution should be amended to include that any American running
for political office undertake a journey around this globe and educate themselves
on how other societies are able to exist as states without politicians that
personalize every aspect of their governments.

In the case of Mr. Romney one would think that as an individual of means he
would undertake such a journey before making silly remarks about the real
economic conditions that affect close to 43 million Americans that live on FOOD
STAMPS.

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By Engrady Pind, May 12, 2011 at 12:19 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I am always amazed and dismayed by the Republican attitude toward healthcare. What it boils down to is this: only those who can afford to purchase private health insurance will be cared for in case of disease or accident or aging. This is brought to you by those few people in the party and Congress who do not have to worry about healthcare for themselves since their needs will be met by those marvelous job benefits they vote themselves.

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mrfreeze's avatar

By mrfreeze, May 11, 2011 at 9:07 pm Link to this comment

Caution: An ad hominem statement follows:

Having grown up in UT as a non-Mormon, I have an intense hatred of the “core values” that sit (rotting) in the (black) hearts of Mormon jerk-offs like Mitt Romney. They’re all apple pie and flags in public, but in private they despise the government (even though they’ll take government money like a whore. Just the sight of him reminds me of all the pompous, self-righteous, narcissistic creeps that infest UT. Indeed, I don’t know how stupid one must be to believe ANYTHING that spews from his maw but if you do, you have NO intellectual credibility at all.

Romney is nothing more than another rich-boy, hypocrite fuck-face Republican who never worked an honest day in his life. He makes me want to vomit.

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By prisnersdilema, May 11, 2011 at 8:54 pm Link to this comment

Good idea, yes do away with Obama care.

Because Obama care is a 30 billion dollar gift to the Insurance industry that’s enjoying record profits this year, and paying out record bonuses to their CEO’s.

Despite Romneys’ delusion that this country still has a free market system, after the billions spent on propping up wall street, and bailing out crooked bankers, getting rid of the fraud of Obama care is the only way to provide real health reform, the kind that will actually help people.

Mr. Romney if you really believe in the free market system, then do away with anti trust exemptions for the Insurance companies, their profits and bonues are a result of denying care to those in need of it. Every dollar in profit they make, means that some patient somewhere, is short changed.

Those 60 million dollar bonues paid to insurance execs, represent the deaths, and suffering of millions or Americans.

There are solutions, to the health care crisis that faces this country, but allowing medicine to be controlled by insurance companies, is not it.

Yes there may be 50 million uninsured in this country, but there are also millions and millions of insureds, who get next to nothing for their insurance premiums, because insurance companies continue to destroy the infrastructure of medicine, and destroy lives with FDA approved poisonous treatments.

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By gstoddard, May 11, 2011 at 7:16 pm Link to this comment

This man may have made a lot of money in the business world, but he has no
core values or beliefs. As governor of Massachusetts he took fairly moderate (by
today’s standards) positions on a number of issues that are now unacceptable to
those in control of the Republican party. He shifts in the political winds more
quickly than a feather.

Anyone that advocates the “free market” solution to our health care problems
should be asked to cite examples anywhere in the world where the free market
works in health care.

A good source for serious information about our health care non-system is “The
Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care” by
T. R. Reid. He clearly reports on his search for better health care.

We currently have more than 50 million uninsured in our country and the number
is increasing. The much maligned reform plan passed by the Democrats will
reduce the number of uninsured significantly. The current Republican proposal,
while not explicit with details, will increase the numbers of uninsured by tens of
millions. The proposed Medicare revisions do nothing to address the cost issue
other than increasing the financial burden on seniors.

This remains a fundamental moral issue for our nation. Shall we continue to
allow people to die or families to be forced into bankruptcy because of
inadequate access to reasonable health care at a reasonable cost or shall we
allow the system to provide excellent health care to just the insured and the
wealthy?

Nothing the Republicans have offered to date answers this question in way that is
consistent with the professed Christians values they so loudly wear on their
sleeves.

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