Romney: My Health Care Plan 'Wasn't Perfect'
Politico reports:
Mitt Romney repeatedly called for the repeal of “Obamacare” in a Saturday night speech to New Hampshire Republicans, even as the former Massachusetts governor admitted his own state’s health care program “wasn’t perfect.”
“Some things worked, some things didn’t, and some things I’d change,” he said of the Massachusetts plan he authored, without offering specifics.
In his first public appearance in the first-in-the-nation primary state since last October, the all-but-declared presidential candidate said that nothing the president has done during his first two years in office was “more misguided and egregious … than Obamacare.”
“Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney said. “The federal government isn’t the answer for running health care any more than it’s the answer for running Amtrak or the Post Office.”
Even though an individual mandate requiring coverage is the hallmark of both the Massachusetts law and the president’s plan — what critics respectively have dubbed “Romneycare” and “Obamacare” — Romney sought to draw a distinction between the two.
“Our approach was a state plan intended to address problems that were in many ways unique to Massachusetts,” he said. “What we did there as Republicans and Democrats was what the Constitution intended for states to do — we were one of the laboratories of democracy.”
“One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover,” he added.
In his remarks, Romney three times called for “Obamacare” to be rolled back, saying at one point, “I would repeal Obamacare, if I were ever in a position to do so.”
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