Posted on 02/28/2011 8:51:53 AM PST by Colofornian
In his new book, Mike Huckabee trashes “RomneyCare” – saying it’s “socialized medicine” that has exploded costs, worsened care for patients, and proves why President Obama’s unpopular health care reform won't work.
In a chapter in "A Simple Government," Huckabee uses Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care program to bolster his arguments against Obama's reforms, yoking the two tightly together.
"If our goal in health-care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work," he writes.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday night, Huckabee called RomneyCare the "800 pound gorilla in the room for him."
"I think it's not a killer for him. But he has to say either 'I love it,' 'I hate it,' or, 'Hey I tried it, it didn't work and that's why I would say to you, let's not do it nationally,'" Huckabees said. "He's got to figure out how he wants to deal with it. It's the 800-pound elephant in the room for him."
Huckabee said in the interview that Romney should just fess up and admit his health care program's not working.
"The position he should take is to say: 'Look, the reason Obamacare won't work is because we've tried it at the state level and we know it won't work,'" Huckabee told AP.
"'We gave it our best shot and I'm proud we tried it because – in a world where we all agreed something needed to be done – we thought this might be a way to fix the crisis we had in health care. Our experiment did not turn out as we had hoped. It cost more, waiting times were higher, quality of care went down, people were greatly dissatisfied and it ended up having almost the polar opposite effect of what was intended.'"
In the book, Huckabee spends two pages detailing studies that have shown RomneyCare has failed, and calling it a clear precursor to the ways the national law also will not work.
Romney has tried to argue that his law is different than Obama’s and what works in one state won’t necessarily work in others or nationally, but the former Massachusetts governor has still come under sharp criticism.
“My own preference is to let each state fashion its own program to meet the distinct needs of its citizens,” Romney wrote in the paperback edition of his book, “No Apology: Believe in America.”
In the book, Romney said the Democrats’ push for health care was a power grab that violates the constitution, and that he wouldn’t suggest imposing the Massachusetts plan on all states.
POLITICO reported yesterday on the potential political dangers that RomneyCare poses in the early-voting primary states, because it is enormously unpopular with conservatives.
"Not only is ObamaCare cost prohibitive, it's already been shown to not work!" Huckabee writes on page 84 of his book.
"In chapter 2, I mentioned how the federal government ignored the negative results of the health-care 'experiment' known as RomneyCare. It could be argued that if RomneyCare were a patient, the prognosis would be dismal. 'No one but Mr. Romney disagrees,' quipped Joseph Rago, senior editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, in a piece entitled 'The Massachusetts Health-Care Train Wreck.'"
Huckabee, who like Romney is considering running for president in 2012, added that Romney himself penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed soon after the bill signing, promising affordable health insurance and reduced health care costs.
"A noble goal, indeed, but when the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation stepped into the lab to examine this experiment-in-progress, they found that health care, which was 16 percent of the state budget in 1990, had jumped to 35 percent in 2010. (That's not a typo; health care is consuming over a third of the entire state budget!)," Huckabee writes.
He adds, "You get one guess as to who now has the highest average health-insurance premiums in the country. Yep, it's Massachusetts!"
The former Arkansas governor also cited a Boston Globe report saying RomneyCare is raising premiums massively faster than the national average.
He also said that "just the opposite" of patients receiving better care is happening.
Huckabee first took aim at RomneyCare in 2009, a year after he failed to convert his 2008 Iowa caucus win into further victory.
Huckabee was in Washington today promoting his book, and attending a "tea" hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
He's pitched the book as a roadmap to his thinking in terms of his stands if he runs for president again in 2012.
After the event, he detailed why he's said he thinks President Obama will be tough to beat.
"He’s probably going to have a billion dollars in his warchest. … (and) no primary, it’s not like Hillary’s gonna be chasing him down till June this time," he said, adding Obama wil be "flying around on Air Force One for the first 9 months of 2012. Being president, making speeches, not even saying anything."
He added the primaries "could be a protracted event" because of new Republican National Committee rules calling for proportionality in the awarding of delegates. "How could you sustain this thing for a long (stretch) of time?" he added.
Earlier, he told a group of about 50 reporters that he's in a better position than he was last time and that is impacting his time frame for making a decision about whether to enter the race.
"I’m in a very different position than I was four years ago," he said. "I'm obviously better known. I'm polling at the top...I no longer have, I think, been relegated to sort of a subset of the GOP. It puts me in a sort of different position...certainly means that I’d be smart to wait not only for the field to develop."
As for his lucrative TV, radio and speaking gigs, he acknowledged he prefers "being better off" than being poor, which is how he grew up, but added, "I'm not so enamored wiht the things I have that they have me."
On policy, he said he didn't see an end-game for the nation in Afghanistan and expressed concern about the direction it's headed in.
"What is it we do to say 'we're done?'" he asked of Afghanistan, adding he doesn't see a way for the nation to grow.
When visiting the country, "you think, 'Gosh, am I in a country or the surface of the moon?' You honestly cannot see what can happen here," he said.
From the article: In a chapter in "A Simple Government," Huckabee uses Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care program to bolster his arguments against Obama's reforms, yoking the two tightly together. "If our goal in health-care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work," he writes. In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday night, Huckabee called RomneyCare the "800 pound gorilla in the room for him." "I think it's not a killer for him. But he has to say either 'I love it,' 'I hate it,' or, 'Hey I tried it, it didn't work and that's why I would say to you, let's not do it nationally,'" Huckabees said. "He's got to figure out how he wants to deal with it. It's the 800-pound elephant in the room for him." Huckabee said in the interview that Romney should just fess up and admit his health care program's not working.
Romney should admit that his health care plan was about as effective as Huckster’s parole program.
Huch HATES Moromons too!
Somehow I find myself less than inspired...
Like some battle between Godzilla and Mothra over a gaping Volcanic Chasm in the Earth, I find myself rooting the Chasm...
That’s why RomneyCare is a political albatross around Romney’s neck and why he never mentions it in his new book and why he doesn’t tout it on the stump.
Huckabee was on fox this weekend saying he would run if he was well funded.
taking back the I will not run. He also said he enjoys campaining.
Translation: He will run as a vote splitter for the right price.
suckers.
While, technically, the federalism argument is correct, when a state program turns into a giant fuster cluck, the concept rings hollow.
Huck has learned nothing from his parole program either. He still thinks he has a gift from God to determine who has accepted Jesus and won't kill again. He needs to just go away and stick to his day job. There was a reason he had trouble raising money in 2008. He might get Soros to sponsor him in 2012 just so his own sock puppet doesn't have a tough re-election. At least Romney wastes mostly his own money.
They’re both pretty much worthless, as far as I’m concerned.
YET
Still sing it praises if the audience is right...
Damn duplicitous SOB.
But Huck calling him on it is funny as hell...
Socialist cat fight.
During his presentation to the governors this morning, Obama mentioned RomneyCare, in glowing terms. We all know it has been a big flop. And yet, RomneyCare is still being used to shore up support for another failed program, the unconstitutional ObamaCare.
Romney must be so proud about now.
I’ll never forget the picture of dead Kennedy just glowing behind Romney as he signed RomneyCare into existence.
Wouldn’t that give you a little pause, knowing Ted Kennedy was fully on board?
Huckabee criticizing another candidate on spending is the pot calling the kettle black. Hopefully we won't be seeing much more of him or Romney over the next year or two. They both need to just go away.
Huck’s not mending the fences with the Mittens with this kind of talk. Since Huckabee is accused of single-handedly taking the nomination from Mitt by his supporters, I doubt they’ll ever forgive Huck, regardless of what he does.
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