Posted on 10/11/2011 12:09:46 PM PDT by STARWISE
The Obama administration may have relied much more heavily on Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare legislation as a blueprint for Obamacare than was previously believed.
White House visitor logs obtained by NBC News revealed that three of Romney’s healthcare advisers had up to a dozen meetings with senior administration officials, including one in the Oval Office presided over by President Barack Obama.
“They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model,” MIT economist and Romney healthcare adviser Jon Gruber told NBC.
What’s more, the records show Gruber was given a $380,000 contract in 2009 to help draft new legislation based on the Massachusetts healthcare law.
The White House tapped another Romney adviser, John Kingsdale, who in 2006 was put in charge of the state agency tasked with implementing Romney’s healthcare plan. In 2009, Kingsdale attended three White House meetings on healthcare.
A third Romney adviser, John McDonough, attended four White House healthcare meetings. McDonough shared an “innovator in health” award with the Massachusetts governor, after leading a health advocacy group in Massachusetts and working with Romney as a consumer advocate on the legislation.
Though Obama has repeatedly said that he modeled Obamacare on Romney’s healthcare plan, Romney has tried to wash his hands of the association.
“He does me the great favor of saying that I was the inspiration of his plan. If that’s the case, why didn’t you call me?” Romney said in a GOP debate. “Why didn’t you ask what was wrong? Why didn’t you ask if this was an experiment, what worked and what didn’t? … I would have told him, ‘What you’re doing, Mr. President, is going to bankrupt us.’”
Obamacare’s most unpopular feature, the individual mandate that requires all citizens to purchase a healthcare plan, was lifted wholesale from Romney’s healthcare reform package, which he touted as a way of “expanding coverage to all our citizens.”
Gruber’s involvement is the most damning association for Romney, and the GOP candidate has done his best to play down the connection. Gruber, however, has not.
He told NBC that Romney was “the father of health-care reform. I think he is the single person most responsible for health care reform in the United States. … If Mitt Romney had not stood up for this reform in Massachusetts … I don’t think it would have happened nationally. So I think he really is the guy with whom it all starts.”
How did Romney Rick Perry himself? Did he change his position on Obamacare? Did you just learn about Romneycare? What exactly is new news here?
What the hell did the residents of Massachusetts do to deserve being forced to buy health insurance or be fined?
I mean, they are responsible for Barney Frank, Romney, Jon Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
On second thought, I've just answered my own question.
Massachusetts can burn in hell.
did you even read this article? Romney was asked previously if anyone on his staff consulted with the Obama administration about Romneycare using it for a model for devising Obamacare. Romeny coyly replies they never asked him and if they would have he might have told them it was wrong for a nationalized healthcare system. He lied as he said no one representing Mitt met with White House staff when now we learn they have had meetings at least 12 of them to discuss Obamacare. If you can’t see this was lieing then you might want to consider new glasses or a change of party affiliation.
If you actually believe that standing for honesty, integrity and conservative values makes me look silly on a CONSERVATIVE FORUM, consider just what your rebukes make you look like .. and you’ve still not answered my questions.
What’s unknown and hidden is the ax you’re really grinding here, ‘cause you’re not revealing it.
The problem or soon to be problema is...we do not have enough time so we have to make a very educated decision and go all in very very soon.
You think MB will harp on Mitt tonight?
Not surprising since Romney had his Romneycare first and would naturally be a pattern for the mindless morons who are currently unloading this crap on the whole country!
I live in Massachusetts. Some of us are conservative and on the scene and thank God because without us it would be very bad here and I say this with sincerest understatement.
If hopes came true, but I doubt it.
And Romney is still considered a republican because ...?
Hear, hear!
(spoken by a native Mass. gal ;)
There’s a few patriotic conservatives, but
they are there.
“Always two there are, no more, no less: a master and an apprentice. ...” says Yoda.
I love the “did you read the article?” from the “did not understand the article” guy. I’ll stay with this party and suggest that since you are pretty much reading comprehension challenged to leave the thinking to others.
Federalism, people. What Massachusetts does on health care is a legitimate state exercise of power. Obamacare is an illegitimate exercise of FEDERAL power.
Ok, we get it, you’re a huge Romeny fan. Yes, I understood the article, but clearly you did not. How did you read the article and not come to the conclusion Romeny lied and is a weasel by flip flopping on the truth of the matter, or is that the way you roll too?
I’m with the party no matter who the candidate against Obama. Are you? Who needs to find a new party?
I understand that the people who worked on the Mass bill got paid to work on Obamacare and would like to continue to get paid so have to put the resume in the best light.
I don’t hold Reagan in a bad light because of what David Stockman now says so I think holding someone to what every adviser he has ever had is pretty dumb.
“Lisa’s the coach and Gina’s the quarterback” in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “She’s running the plays, improvising on the line.”
Another Romney environmental adviser in the effort to regulate “greenhouse gases” is now Obama’s Director of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren. Dr. Holdren has some exotic views: …………..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.