Mitt Romney's Lying Problem

Reason ^

[Def Conservative]

Here's the problem with Romney's repeated assertion that he never suggested applying Romneycare nationwide: It just isn't true.

At a GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 5, 2007, here's what Mitt Romney had to say about his preferred federal approach to health care policy:

Look, it's critical to insure more people in this country. It doesn't make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It's not good for them because they don't get good preventative care and disease management, just as these folks have spoken about. But it's not good for the rest of the citizens either, because if people aren't insured, they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That’s expensive. They don't have any insurance to cover it. [...]

We have to have our citizens insured, and we're not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don’t have insurance aren’t paying taxes. What you have to do is what we did in Massachusetts. Is it perfect? No. But we say, let's rely on personal responsibility, help people buy their own private insurance, get our citizens insured, not with a government takeover, not with new taxes needed, but instead with a free-market based system that gets all of our citizens in the system. No more free rides. It works.

Emphasis mine.

There are two main problems with this yawning chasm between Mitt's flip and Romney's flop. The first is that a president who continues to insist, despite the mounds of contrary evidence, that Romneycare is working well, is a president who will be likely to continue or exacerbate bad health care policies at the federal level.

[NoRedTape]

Get lost, Willard!