I read the entire article. Her arguments drilled deep into the substance of the situation as it then stood in Massachusetts, in which Romney proposed a plan to counteract the double-whammy of hospitals already forced to donate health care to non-payers, and the state running a large $1.2 billion expense as a result. His proposal was to offset this expense. Her article goes on to explain how Democrats then so distorted and changed the proposals that it became a similarly luxurious entitlement program like Obamacare, which she denounced earlier in the article, and which she quoted Romney as denouncing. Romney was leading a nearly solidly Democrat state, and it is a wonder to me he got elected at all. And he could have been dead wrong in signing the amended bill; then again, the legislature could have overridden a veto.
It's possible that many who did see this column never read past her typically sardonic headline, "Three Cheers for Romneycare!" to analyze her points about how it might have worked AT THE STATE LEVEL IN THAT STATE, NOT THE NATION if not for the Democrat meddling there.
To your second point, I am willing to believe that she could have erred in her often-careless sarcasm, if she used it to defend ugly remarks by Maher about Santorum's children, since she and Maher have been friends for a long time. I, too, *gasp* have some liberal friends from 'way back that I am reluctant to dismiss from my life entirely. Unfortunately for this discussion, I went to the link to hear her remarks myself, but the video had been removed from the blog post you linked to, so I can't say a final yea or nay on that.