Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 02:37 am
Romney reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Healthcare Act by lying about ObamaCare and vowing to repeal it on day one.
Romney said that on his first day as President, “What the court did not do on the last day of session, I will do on my first day as president of the United States, that is to repeal Obamacare.” He added, “It was bad policy yesterday, it is bad policy today.” Romney then claimed ObamaCare raised taxes on the American people by 500 billion dollars and cuts Medicare by 500 billion dollars, both of which are inaccurate. The fear-mongering continued, “Obamacare adds trillions to our deficit and national debt.”
Romney’s talking points have been debunked numerous times and found false. The CBO finds that the ACA is going to reduce the deficit, not add to it. Furthermore:
The key to this claim is the fact that the health care law does not take $500 billion out of the current Medicare budget. Rather, the bill attempts to slow the program’s future growth, curtailing just over $500 billion in future spending increases over the next 10 years.
Romney then used the bizarre and inaccurate claim that ObamaCare is “a job killer” that “puts the federal government between you and your doctor.”
Then we get to the part conservative Republicans were waiting to hear, “We must replace ObamaCare, and that is my mission. Help us defeat ObamaCare, help us defeat the liberal agenda.”
One wonders if “help us defeat the liberal agenda” is the best talking point to a general audience. But the point here is that Romney really wants to avoid the issue of ObamaCare, which puts him at odds with Congressional Republicans. He has shown his desire to avoid running against the individual mandate in the past, given his own history with implementing the personal responsibility clause while governor.
Yesterday, Mitt Romney signaled that he was planning on countering the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of ObamaCares by calling out Obama’s “moral failings”.
It makes sense that he didn’t do this today, as it would seem risky business for a man whose “pranks” include swinging a fire ax over his head after barging into a store in downtown Birmingham, Michigan, holding down a classmate to cut his hair, and strapping his dog to the top of the family car for a 12 hour car trip.
Romney said yesterday that Obamacare was a “bad policy” that diverted the president’s attention away from the more important issues like the economy.
“The president is in a tight spot because he hasn’t done what he said he’d do. He said he would turn the economy around. He said that was his No. 1 priority,” Romney declared.”His policies were not focused on creating jobs. They were focused on implementing his liberal agenda. There’s nothing wrong with people having an agenda, but when the country’s in crisis, you have a moral responsibility to focus on helping people come out of that crisis. So it’s not just bad policy, it was a moral failure to put forth a piece of legislation that wouldn’t help Americans get back to work and to focus the energy of the White House on Obamacare.”
That sort of cheap talking point might work with the base, but most regular Americans know someone who couldn’t get insurance during a costly medical crisis. Parts of ACA that are popular with Americans are that it protects them from being thrown off their insurance when they need it, allows young adults up to the age of 26, to stay on their parents healthcare, keeps emergency rooms from being the first line of defense, and implements affordable preventative care.
Health care is a huge part of our lives, including our economic lives. When it comes down to it, having our loved ones be able to actually get insurance with a preexisting condition can mean the difference between life and death, between poverty and stability.
Taking aim at Obama’s “moral responsibility” to focus on jobs and alleged failure to do so is also risky business for Romney when it’s his own party that has obstructed every jobs bill Obama has tried to pass. The only bill they finally allowed through, after it was broken down into palatable bits, was the veterans job bill. They couldn’t afford to not pass it, though they made plenty of noise threatening to kill it.
Next week, the first rebate checks start going out. Insurance companies owe 1.1 billion dollars in rebate checks to individuals and companies. The checks will be going out to 12.8 million Americans. For a married couple with no kids, this will add up to about 300 dollars, or 151 dollars per person. It’s going to be tough for Romney to claim Obama doesn’t care about the people of this country.
What kind of country allows the poor and the needy to die because of corporate health insurance policies? What kind of country sits back while good, hard working people pay into an insurance policy for years, and then when they need it, they get cut off? What kind of party cheers the death of someone who doesn’t have health insurance?
If healthcare and jobs are centered on the notion of morality, what is Romney’s plan?
Well, for the most part he won’t tell us. What specifics we have learned about Romney’s plans for the economy we got the hard way – caught when he thought he wasn’t being recorded, pieced together and extracted from his sound bites. Romney’s plan is basically Bush II times two. Trickle down jobs and prosperity after we cut even more taxes for the rich and go to war with Iran.
Speaking of morality, how does one frame tax cuts to the rich at a time when they aren’t paying the same percentage as the average American, as moral? How will Romney frame no plan for the healthcare crisis against a plan that the Supreme Court just upheld as Constitutional?
Mitt Romney better hope he has a better plan to counter ObamaCare than “moral failings”. The stale “don’t tread on me” teabagger cries of 2009 and 2010 are not going to power him through to the finish line. Thankfully, when it comes to morality, most Americans agree that we have a moral responsibility to take care of our own people, especially when they are working hard to be productive members of society.
But what of the needy, what of the folks who are physically unable to provide for themselves?
What would Jesus do? Would he turn his back, or would he, as the Nuns on the Bus say, care for the least among us. If morality is the issue, compassion is going to be the keystone of that argument. And when Americans think of compassion, they don’t think of Mitt Romney, ensconced in his car elevator vacation home that comes with its own lobbyist.
Romney’s “plan” for healthcare is to let the states decide. He said Tuesday evening that if the court upheld ACA, Romney would be the One to overturn it. “We’re going to need a president — and I’m that one — that’s going to get rid of ‘Obamacare’. We’re going to stop it on Day One.”
A pause while we ponder how Romney, as President, would constitutionally stop a law on day one of his presidency. Checks and balances don’t seem to be a Republican thing these days.
The Congressional Republicans want to run against ObamaCares, with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus saying the Supreme Court’s decision on health care “sets the stakes for the November election.” John Boehner was going to give an immediate reaction but postponed his remarks to speak after Romney.
See, even as Congressional Republicans want to run against Obamacares, W. Mitt Romney secretly wants to run as far away from this issue as he can. After all, the “death to freedom” that is ObamaCares to conservatives was W. Mitt’s idea before it was Obama’s. As Massachusetts governor, W. Mitt Romney pushed through an insurance mandate that became the model for ObamaCares.
Back then, Romney lauded his pro personal responsibility plan, “With regards to the individual mandate, the individual responsibility program that I proposed, I was very pleased that the compromise between the two houses includes the personal responsibility mandate. That is essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need.”
Watch the old, pro-mandate Romney here:
Insurance mandates were, of course, a Republican idea before Obama embraced them. After Obama touched them, they became the anti-Christ and wildly unconstitutional, according to Republicans. Ironically, the individual mandate is a personal responsibility clause.
We can’t forget that just Tuesday night, W. Mitt Romney claimed that if the court overturned ObamaCare (said with sneer), Obama’s first term would be a failure. Romney said, “Then the first 3 1/2 years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people.”
Logic would dictate that since the court upheld it, Romney now sees Obama’s entire term as a huge success. Obamacare is already helping people. I should know, because I’m one of them.
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