Posted on 12/29/2011 5:47:20 PM PST by Libloather
Romney describes healthcare mandate as conservative principle
By Jonathan Easley - 12/28/11 08:55 AM ET
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the insurance mandate included in the Massachusetts healthcare law he signed is fundamentally a conservative principle.
Speaking Wednesday on “Fox and Friends,” Romney defended the Bay State’s healthcare law, which includes a version of the individual mandate, as inline with the Republican world view. The individual mandate was the centerpiece and most controversial aspect of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which has widely been blasted by Republicans as governmental overreach.
“I’m happy to stand by the things that I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign,” Romney said. “What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts, the plan is still favored there by 3 to 1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that people take personal responsibility as opposed to turning to government for giving out free care.”
On Tuesday, Romney and rival Newt Gingrich jabbed at each other over the matter after The Wall Street Journal uncovered a 2006 memo in which Gingrich said he “agreed entirely” with Romney’s healthcare bill.
Buzzfeed also uncovered a 2008 video in which Gingrich passionately defended the idea of an individual mandate and called it “immoral” for those who can afford to have insurance not to buy it.
“I knew that [Gingrich] supported the plan in the past, and I believe he supported it until he got into the race this year, but maybe before that he changed his view,” Romney said. “Look, our plan was right for our state, and in my view it was based on conservative principles that frankly came from Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation, which was that instead of people relying on government to provide their care, they should take personal responsibility.”
But Gingrich said he now realizes that there are aspects of the law that are “unacceptable,” and that unlike Romney, he has the courage to say so.
“There are a lot of details of ‘Romneycare’ that are unacceptable,” Gingrich said Tuesday on CNN. “And the difference between me and Romney is I’ve concluded — and I’m prepared to say publicly — I’ve concluded, just as the Heritage Foundation did, that the idea didn’t work. Romney’s still defending the mandate that he passed.”
Both Romney and Gingrich have vowed to repeal Obama’s healthcare law if elected president.
Romney is battling Ron Paul for the lead in polls of Iowa voters less than a week before that state’s GOP caucus. Gingrich had been in the lead, but has faded under attack from Romney and other GOP candidates.
An illegal and unconstitutional mandate is a Conservative Principle? This guy is a moron and a huge Faux conservative. He can't even lipsync his way.
C’mon, man, does anybody think Obamney is going to repeal Obamneycare? He may make a show of it, but he won’t get it done.
Exactly. The only thing Romney would do would say he was going to run Obamacare “Better” than Democrats. Newt would probably repeal some of it but not the whole thing. I would trust Perry,Bachmann,or Santorum..(maybe Paul) to fully repeal Obamacare
Romney talks in circles and is the poster boy for a bureaucrat.
Mitt calls himself a conservative, but he has no clue what the word means. No, thank you, I’ll take a real conservative in 2012.
Romney is a cheap little hypocrite.
Yeah, Authoritarian-Conservative.
Those of us from the Libertarian-Conservative branch see it as a gross overreach.
I wouldn’t trust any of them to completely get us out of Obamacare.
Mitt is spinning like a top and Newt as the man said would probably get us out of some of it.
If by some nightmare Mittens gets the nomination, the Tea Party needs to run their own candidate for President, or at least begin the process of splitting away from the Repubs and forming a new political party that will eventually cause the Repubs to collapse.
Oh, heck/ G.k. Chesterton, a real conservative for the ages, wrote against England’s attempts in the early 20th century to force all Englishmen to carry health insurance. The movement was backed by Utopian Socialists and plutocrats, a true unholy alliance.
I believe this will be a moot point after the SCOTUS rules it unconstitutional.
If they do not rule it so..then secession will be the result.
That is why I am moving back to AZ. The northeastern states and west coast states will stay in the “Union” and the rest will get out.
Agreed.
Since when is requiring “personal responsibility” at the point of a “bayonet” a conservative principal???
Fascist sob.....
Overreach is right, if not too mild!
"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures."
- Alexander Hamilton
Bravo Sierra. You can't admit RomneyCare was an error. RomneyCare was the blueprint for ObamaCare and you're going REPEAL it? You are such a bloviating liar! Go away, Mittens. Go far, far away. Go back to your Massholes.
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