ANN ARBOR -- Likely GOP presidential candidate and Michigan native Mitt Romney delivered a major speech on health care reform at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor Thursday. He’s hoping to distance himself from criticisms of the healthcare plan he pushed for in Massachusetts while serving as governor there in 2006.
Romney’s Massachusetts’s plan has been considered a role-model for the program outlined by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Romney defended what he dubbed “MassCare” Thursday, saying he pushed for a state solution to a state problem rather than a government takeover of an entire industry.
Yet it seemed the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial page stole a bit of Romney’s thunder Thursday morning by printing a scathing review of “MassCare” and ultimately calling Romney Obama’s 2012 running mate.
“As everyone knows, the health reform Mr. Romney passed in 2006 as Massachusetts Governor was the prototype for President Obama’s version and gave national healthcare a huge political boost. Mr. Romney now claims ObamaCare should be repealed, but his failure to explain his own role or admit any errors suggests serious flaws both in his candidacy and as a potential President,” said the opinion piece entitled “Obama’s Running Mate: Mitt Romney’s ObamaCare Problem.”
Romney acknowledged the critics but did not back down.
“I recognize that a lot of pundits around the nation are saying that I should just stand up and say this whole thing was a mistake,” Romney said. “But there’s only one problem with that: It wouldn’t be honest.”
Both liberal and conservative groups point out that Romney’s “MassCare” plan also mirrors “ObamaCare”, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by including a mandate requiring people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to comp the state government for having to pay for those who are un-insured and get sick.
I asked Romney directly to comment on the Wall Street Journal editorial but he did not respond, as he was shaking hands and making his way out the door.
However aide Andrea Saul did tell political journal The Daily Caller “The WSJ has been writing editorials against the Massachusetts health care plan since before the plan was actually put into place.”
The National Romney Alternative to “ObamaCare”
Romney focused a significant portion of his nearly 30 minute talk on goals of replacing “ObamaCare” if he were elected president. He pledged to issue an executive order giving states a pathway to opting out of enforcing the Obama-era mandates, before working with Congress to repeal the law altogether.
Romney delivered five guiding principles of reform, basing control in the states instead of Washington. “My experience is that delivering healthcare in Massachusetts may be different in Montana, in Mississippi or other places in the country,” he said.
He also said he would, “block grant to the states Medicaid funds and so-called DASH payments (disproportionate share payments) and other medical payments to the states and say “states, you now use this money as you feel appropriate to care for your own poor.”
Romney’s proposals lacked many specifics, though he said further messages of reform will be delivered in the coming months. Romney heads to South Carolina later this month to meet with supporters. Romney won the Michigan Republican Primary in 2008.