Friday, September 28, 2012

Flip-flop Friday -- Romney on Health Care

Look, it’s critical to insure more people in this country. It doesn’t make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It’s not good for them because they don’t get good preventative care and disease management…But it’s not good for the rest of the citizens either, because if people aren’t insured, they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That’s expensive. They don’t have any insurance to cover it. -- Mitt Romney, Republican Candidate Debate, August 2007

It doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility -- Mitt Romney in an MSNBC interview explaining that part of the impetus for his Massachusetts health care plan was to keep people out of the ER, 2010

If elected, I will repeal Obamacare on my first day in office --- Mitt Romney, talking point repeated over and over during present presidential campaign, Summer 2012

Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance…We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care. -- Mitt Romney in a 60 Minutes interview pointing to emergency room care as an alternative for people who don’t have health insurance, September 23, 2012.

Don’t forget--I got everybody in my state insured. One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there’s anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record. -- Mitt Romney, NBC News interview, September 26, 2012
 
what eye thynk:   Let’s look at the chronology here. Romney supported universal health care as early as 2006 when, as governor, he passed the Massachusetts health care plan. He continued to support universal health care until he entered the 2012 presidential race when, to please his Republican party handlers, he turned his back on six years of universal health care support to become just another Obama hating toady.

Instead of embracing the good that he did as governor of Massachusetts in passing a state health care plan, he turned his back on it and tried to convince us that it was not meant to be a national model. Now, to further muddy the waters, (and in obvious response to the derision he has earned over his lack of empathy for the poor and the middle class), he is trying to raise the banner of his Massachusetts health care act as evidence of his generous heart and the good he is capable of doing.

So, does he believe the Massachusetts health care act is right, but the ACA is wrong? Does he believe that emergency room care is good enough for those who can’t afford insurance or does he believe that it is a waste of money that should be spent on preventative care funded by affordable universal insurance? Is mandating health insurance for everyone a sign of caring or is it socialism at its worst?

Mitt Romney has changed positions so often and on so many subjects, that I doubt even he can be sure what he believes in anymore. As for myself, with the exception of money, I don’t think he believes in anything at all.

No comments:

Post a Comment