Romney: Obama’s health law an ‘unfolding disaster’

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney, cam­paigns Fri­day in Metairie, La. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Steven Senne)

KASIE HUNT

Asso­ci­ated Press

METAIRIE, La. — Mitt Rom­ney on Fri­day looked to pre-empt Supreme Court argu­ments that will shine a spot­light on a key vul­ner­a­bil­ity for him in the Repub­li­can pri­mary — health care reform.

Rom­ney called Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s sig­na­ture over­haul “an unfold­ing dis­as­ter for the Amer­i­can econ­omy, a budget-busting enti­tle­ment and a dra­matic new fed­eral intru­sion into our lives.”

Rom­ney was mark­ing the sec­ond anniver­sary of the sign­ing of the health care law, which requires all Amer­i­cans to pay insur­ance or face a tax penalty. That man­date to buy insur­ance has become a focal point for con­ser­v­a­tive anger, and crit­ics say it rep­re­sents unwanted or even uncon­sti­tu­tional gov­ern­ment intrusion.

Rom­ney, though, signed a health reform law as gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts that required every­one in the state to buy insur­ance, leg­is­la­tion that became the model for the national over­haul. Romney’s sup­port of the Mass­a­chu­setts law has fueled con­ser­v­a­tive crit­i­cism against him. Skep­ti­cism about his health care record, com­bined with mod­er­ate posi­tions he’s taken on other issues in the past, is part of what’s con­tribut­ing to Romney’s strug­gle to wrap up the GOP nomination.

The White House on Fri­day released a report high­light­ing the ben­e­fits of the over­haul, includ­ing a pro­vi­sion that makes it ille­gal for insur­ance com­pa­nies to refuse to cover peo­ple who have pre-existing med­ical conditions.

In a writ­ten state­ment, Obama said the law “has made a dif­fer­ence for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans, and over time, it will help give even more work­ing– and middle-class fam­i­lies the secu­rity they deserve.”

The health care law is unpop­u­lar with vot­ers. An AP-GfK poll con­ducted in Feb­ru­ary found that over­all, 35 per­cent of Amer­i­cans say they sup­port the health care reforms Con­gress passed two years ago, while 47 per­cent oppose it.

Com­ing up next week are three days of argu­ments in the Supreme Court over whether the over­haul, par­tic­u­larly the require­ment to buy insur­ance, is con­sti­tu­tional. Among other options, the jus­tices could uphold the law, strike it down com­pletely or get rid of some provisions.

The argu­ments are likely to shine a spot­light on Romney’s own health care record in Massachusetts.

As gov­er­nor, Rom­ney signed a health care law that requires every­one in Mass­a­chu­setts to buy insur­ance or pay a penalty. The law ended up cov­er­ing most of the unin­sured in the state, but health care costs have risen in the years since it was passed. Crit­ics have dubbed it “Rom­n­ey­Care,” and the plan inspired the national law.

In addi­tion to a man­date to buy insur­ance, both Romney’s law and the national plan include spe­cial mar­ket­places to buy insur­ance, as well as a series of require­ments that health plans have to meet in order to sell plans there.

Rom­ney has refused to dis­avow the Mass­a­chu­setts leg­is­la­tion, instead say­ing that it was the right plan for his state. He says he has never believed it should have become a national model and insists states should be allowed to come up with their own solu­tions to health care problems.

“Dif­fer­ent states have cre­ated dif­fer­ent approaches, and I will return to states the respon­si­bil­ity for car­ing for their own unin­sured,” Rom­ney said Fri­day as he cam­paigned in Louisiana.

Still, Democ­rats were quick to point out that Rom­ney has pre­vi­ously sug­gested his Mass­a­chu­setts law could become the basis for a national plan. “Lessons we learned in Mass­a­chu­setts could help Washington…find a bet­ter way,” Rom­ney in 2009 wrote an opin­ion piece in USA Today. Obama cam­paign strate­gist David Axel­rod has pointed out that the White House used Romney’s plan as a model for the national legislation.

“Gov. Rom­ney was an early sup­porter of the indi­vid­ual man­date, and as gov­er­nor put a man­date in place to ensure all Mass­a­chu­setts res­i­dents were tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for their own health care and every­one could get cov­ered at a lower cost,” Obama cam­paign spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a state­ment. “He called his health care reform plan a national model.”

Rom­ney says that his plan was right for his state, but insists it shouldn’t have become the basis for a national plan.

If Obama intended to use the Mass­a­chu­setts law as a model, “Why didn’t he call me?” Rom­ney rou­tinely says when he’s asked about the issue at cam­paign stops.

The indi­vid­ual man­date was orig­i­nally pro­posed by a con­ser­v­a­tive think tank as an alter­na­tive to the national health plan that then-First Lady Hillary Clin­ton was propos­ing in the mid-1990s. Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Newt Gin­grich, then the Speaker of the House, backed the idea at the time.

Now, the pub­lic remains broadly opposed to an indi­vid­ual man­date. Six in 10 say they oppose a law that would require every Amer­i­can to have health insur­ance or pay a penalty if they don’t. Just 34 per­cent sup­port a man­date for indi­vid­u­als to have health insurance.

There are other pro­vi­sions that are more pop­u­lar. The health law also made it ille­gal for insur­ance com­pa­nies to deny health cov­er­age to peo­ple because of pre-existing med­ical conditions.

Still, that require­ment is part of why the man­date is also included in the law — it makes sure that young, healthy peo­ple are buy­ing insur­ance even if they don’t need very much med­ical care. That brings down insur­ance costs for every­one. A man­date also keeps peo­ple from using emer­gency room care when they don’t have insurance.

Rom­ney rec­og­nized those real­i­ties at the state level. “Get­ting every cit­i­zen insured doesn’t have to break the bank,” he wrote in the 2009 opin­ion piece. “Using tax penal­ties, as we did, or tax cred­its, as oth­ers have pro­posed, encour­ages ‘free rid­ers’ to take respon­si­bil­ity for them­selves rather than pass their med­ical costs on to others.”

Posted by AP News on Mar 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.