Posted on 01/28/2012 3:18:49 PM PST by Jim Robinson
I have not been able to find the entire On The Record Bondi interview, either in video OR professional transcript, so I transcribed it myself. Hopefully the full segment video, with transcript, will become available, so any mistakes I may have made can be corrected.
Below is the transcription of Greta's Pam Bondi interview, transcribed directly from the TV segment [the later rebroadcast]. (Note: In the rebroadcast, there was a second or two in which there was a loss of audio and a black screen; I have noted it in the transcript]
Greta's 1-27-2012 interview On The Record with Pam Bondi
GRETA: And he is certainly taking a lot of flak for it, but Gov Romney insists his healthcare law he signed in MASS s different from Pres. Obama's healthcare law, but Rush Limbaugh says that's not true.
Greta starts interview with RUSH LIMBAUGH show video clip:
Romney says, "92% of the people in my state had insurance before the plan went in place, nothing changes for them." Obama: "If you like your plan, you get to keep your plan," except that you don't, but that's what Obama said. "If you like your plan, you get to keep it, we're not touching it. If you like your doctor, you get to keep it, we're not changing it." "For the 8% of the people who didn't have insurance we said to them if you can afford it, buy it, and if you don't want to buy insurance, then you gotta help pay for the cost."
Obama: "You gotta buy insurance or pay a fine."
[EDITED OUT OF THE RUSH VIDEO] This is Santorum's point, it's the same thing. Your option is to buy insurance required, or you pay a fine. Now, the way Obamacare is structured, the fine is much cheaper than the insurance, for a couple of years, by design. The idea is to get people paying the fine. They are the free riders. Romney is right, they pay the fine but if they show up at the emergency room, by law they have to be treated. They're the free riders. So Santorum is saying, "See, it's the same thing.
Obama's doing the same thing. Romney doesn't call his plan a fine. You don't buy insurance, then you have to help pay for the cost; it's the same thing. This is why people say there's not much difference between the two plans.
And then Romney says, "Under federal law if somebody doesn't have insurance then we have to care for them in the hospitals, give 'em free care. So we said no more free riders." So you're paying a fine or you're buying health insurance, which is what Obamacare is.
Source of video excerpt: Santorum Hammers Romney on Obamacare
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GRETA: FLA Attorney General Pam Bondi has spent the past year trying to get Pres Obama's healthcare law overturned, but she's also supporting Gov Mitt Romney for President. Is that a contradiction of not? Atty Gen Bondi joins us. Good evening Pam.
BONDI: Good evening Greta. Good to talk to you.
GRETA: Nice to talk to you. OK, How do you reconcile these two plans and your support for Gov Romney and the Mass Plan, and, of course, I assume you just heard what Rush Limbaugh just said.
BONDI: Oh, and I have so much respect for Rush Limbaugh, of course. But, oh, there is nothing to reconcile. These are two completely different plans. And I'm listening to Rush, taking notes. Let me tell you what I wrote:
ObamaCare raises taxes.
Mitt Romney's plan would not.
ObamaCare has Medicare diversions.
Romney's plan would not.
Pres Obama's federal healthcare plan creates new federal bureaucracy.
Romney's plan would not.
It [ObamaCare] reduces choice.
Mitt Romney's plan would not.
It raises costs.
Mitt Romney's Plan lowers costs.
I could keep going, but it's about States Rights. From day one, Mitt Romney, and I'll tell you along with Newt Gingrich, along with Rick Santorum, along with Ron Paul, all of our candidates have said, the first thing that they will try to do is get rid of the Federal government healthcare takeover. So all the candidates have said that.
And let me tell you, I have been asked to be on Gov Romney's task force. I am going to be part of his healthcare policy team, um, when he's president to undo this and to create good healthcare. So I wholeheartedly support him, and I don't think he contradicts it at all. In fact, he is doing everything that we agree with.
GRETA: Ok, Let me ask you this. It is enormously complex, all these healthcare questions. Just one of them recently said it reduces costs, and I'm only quoting from what Politico has on 10/26/11 in which it says that even Gov Romney admits it does not reduce costs in Mass. That the whole idea in Mass was to expand coverage so people could be covered, but an admission that it didn't reduce costs cause healthcare costs have been rising and, not in this article, doesn't the Mass[ Healthcare] Plan get some Federal subsidy, so in some way we all sort of pick up the tab?
BONDI: Well, that's in Mass, not in the entire country. He wants a plan where each state can decide what to do in their own state that wouldn't raise costs. And let me tell you Greta, Of the majority of states... [Greta interrupts]
GRETA: Let me ask you about the mandate there. Just so the viewers understand. The national plan has a mandate. The state plan has a mandate. You argue that the national plan mandate is unconstitutional, but there is a distinction with the state plan, is there not?
BONDI: Yes, yes. Federal healthcare plan mandates that every person in this country buy insurance, and if not, we will be penalized or taxed. What we want is for each state to have the ability to regulate and create their own healthcare plans that best fit each state. That's what we want. That's what we mean when we talk about the mandate.
And of the 26 states that are involved in the lawsuit that FLA is leading, the majority of the states---some are governors, some are Attys General---but the majority of the states involved in that healthcare lawsuit have endorsed Mitt Romney, and we stand behind Mitt Romney for Governor as well as my fellow cabinet members Adam Putnam, Jeff Atwater and [black screen /no audio for a second or two] completely remaining neutral. He's not helping anyone behind the scenes, as well as our Senate president and our speaker of the house.
GRETA: Alright. I'm going to take the last word. leaving this just so that I edit the other side ... Bill McCollum, who started the lawsuit, your predecessor in the state of FLA as the AG, he is one of the co-chair of Newt Gingrich's campaign. You, of course, are part of endorsing Gov Romney, just to put some perspective on it.
But anyway, it is enormously complicated, and we are going to see what happens at the end of June in your national lawsuit challenging the national healthcare. Thank-you Pam. Nice to see you.
Are there any federal lawyers out there who have background in election law?
Just thinking of Blank-O and all the talk he did about what will I get for it.....and he didn't even seal the deal.
Well, he’s definitely bought off this lady. Made her a Czar!! Wouldn’t doubt he bought off other officials in Florida and VIRGINIA!!
Oh, yeah, and he definitely bought off Nikki Haley with thirty pieces of silver.
absolutely, no difference, Pam is a fool, very disappointing, Romneybot!
Ah, he wants not a national plan but 50 different state plans! That’s so Romney! He won’t be to blame for any of them.
But, but, didn’t she just say he was going to “create” healthcare? Didn’t she just outline a plan — ONE plan — that was different from Obama’s in this respect, and this, and this and this?
The dope would be far better off it he just admitted his mistake and said he learned from it and move on. The American public is unfortunately far more forgiving than I.
In the post-SOTU commentary, Andrea Mitchell was nearly breathless to brake this news:
ANDREA MITCHELL: "I talked to a top Romney adviser tonight who said, 'Look, if Mitt Romney cannot win here in Florida, then we're going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries. And we're going to have try to come with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich who could be Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, someone.' Because there is such a desperation by the so-called party elites, but that's exactly what Gingrich is playing against."
THREAD: Romney Adviser Said Party Elites Will Find Alternative If Romney Can't Win Florida
THREAD: Andrea Mitchell: Romney Adviser Said Party Elites Will Find Alternative If he Can't Win Florida
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THEN came this:
THREAD: Romney Adviser Norm Coleman Goes Off Message on Health Care
ARTICLE: Romney adviser Norm Coleman predicts GOP president won't repeal health law
"You will not repeal the act in its entirety, but you will see major changes, particularly if there is a Republican president," Coleman told BioCentury This Week television in an interview that aired on Sunday. "You can't whole-cloth throw it out. But you can substantially change what's been done."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THEN came this:
THREAD: Romney Advisor: No Obamacare Repeal
When in fact, this was the real news:
"As Ben Domenech notes in his Transom [Note: subscription site], Mitt Romney’s advisors have now advised him to support “a $2 gas tax, a VAT, and open Taliban talks."
She wouldn’t answer the question relating to federal subsidy for romneycare. I wish someone would provide this number.
Immediately after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, 13 Attorneys General filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Labor alleging the Health Care Reform law signed by the President was unconstitutional.
The amended complaint currently features 26 state plaintiffs; additionally, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) joined the lawsuit as a co-plaintiff on behalf of its members nationwide.
The lawsuit, filed in the federal court’s Northern District of Florida on March 23, alleges the new law infringes upon the constitutional rights of Floridians and residents of the other states by mandating all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage or pay a tax penalty. By imposing such a mandate, the law exceeds the powers of the United States under Article I of the Constitution. Additionally, the tax penalty required under the law constitutes an unlawful direct tax in violation of Article I, sections 2 and 9 of the Constitution.
The lawsuit further claims the health care reform law infringes on the sovereignty of the states and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution by imposing onerous new operating rules that Florida must follow as well as requiring the state to spend billions of additional dollars without providing funds or resources to meet the state's cost of implementing the law. This burden comes at a time when Florida faces severe budget cuts to offset shortfalls in an already-strained budget.
Plaintiffs
Just like Obama
Romney never met a mandate that he didnt or wouldnt forsce on the taxpayers...
Romney is on record bragging about getting the federal government, ie, me and you brother, for picking up half the tab for RomneyCare and that’s why it didn’t immediately blow the Massachusetts budget. He’s a national socialist through and through.
Incidentally, overseeing a nation of 50 states and having some tweaked Obamacare floating over 50 separate state plans, sounds like a recipe for utter chaos.
As I recall, the Founding Fathers didn’t think it prudent for states to coin money or have their own post offices or certain other prerogatives of the national government. Just too messy.
You’d wind up having to stay home a lot, unless they had reciprocity in healthcare. But maybe that’s the plan. Stay home and shaddap.
No, it’ll eventually be so messy — it’s like when Obama said, if you like your plan you can keep your plan. A state crafts its own plan, because Romney wants to let a hundred flowers bloom a la Mao; and then it gets so messy, they really CAN’T keep their plan, they have to take the federal plan.
Maybe they should just GTFO of the healthcare business, and stay out.
Those doggies are smarter than some Republicans...
I just emailed Gingrich and alerted him to this thread with the information. He and McCollum will be able to find out more and hopefully address it. Limbaugh and Mark Levin will for sure. I VCR’d this particular show and do have it on VHS tape but cannot find it online either for some odd reason. (Very strange!) I do feel everything is there in your transcript that should be as I listened to it twice. I could not believe what I was hearing.
Can somebody translate those reds into English, please? In what sense have states endorsed him and where exactly is he running for governor?
Here is the full interview, Jim:
http://www.therightscoop.com/did-pam-bondi-really-defend-romneycare/
I live in NH but work in Boston. So my health plan is out of Massachusetts. My costs have tripled since Romneycare was implemented.
Your statement brings to my mind that over the years, with Demos,Repubs or whomever with power, our Nation has been turned into a polyglot of laws that allow other people to control/have-a-say in the lives and activities of anyone other person’s life,as long as the those people get something for themselves, deserved/earned or not deserved/earned. Smooth talking politicians/lawyers have turn this Nation into a social programs Tower of Babel. I have for years watched and listened to Obama contributing to the situation. As of the last few days I’m coming to believe Romney and all his enablers care not that the situation for our Nation gets any better. They want power over people. Afterthought: It seems to me that instead of talking about Romney switch-talking, Newt’s people should be calling Romney the king of modern day Babel.
Report dated YESTERDAY shows Mitt has made some ‘technical changes’ to his financial disclosure form ... i.e., the Swiss bank acct is GONE but not clear what else was changed.
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