Mitt Romney and the Lessons of Health Care Deadlines
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein reports:
Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., jumped back into the debate over health care reform today with a sharply worded op-ed in USA Today, asking — as the headline states — “Mr. President, What’s the Rush?” “Because of President Obama's frantic approach, health care has run off the rails. For the sake of 47 million uninsured Americans, we need to get it back on track,” Romney writes. Romney — a once and quite possibly future presidential candidate — blasts President Obama for seeking to impose an “artificial deadline” on health care reform. “There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it,” he writes.Yet there’s another lesson in the Massachusetts example: Deadlines can be useful to executives.Though the comparison is far from precise, Romney himself at one point tried to use a deadline to goad the state legislature into action. When the pace of talks slowed in early 2006, he cited a July 1, 2006, deadline that — if not met, he warned — would cost the state millions in federal Medicaid dollars. “We have an agreement that starts July 1,” Romney said in February 2006, according to The Boston Globe. “If we don't have something in place on July 1, there is a risk that [the federal government] will withhold or not provide funding on a day-to-day basis.” Two months later, Gov. Romney was able to sign the state’s historic health care reform bill — dramatically reducing the number of uninsured residents in Massachusetts — into law.Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman, points out that the president’s deadline is quite different than what the governor was referencing. Health care reform was a years-long process in Massachusetts, and Romney was citing a federal deadline that, if missed, would cost the state matching funds.”The fact is we spent two years putting together a health care bill. President Obama wants to get it done in two months. That's unrealistic,” Fehrnstrom said.He also noted that the same Globe story from February 2006 includes this quote from the governor: “Negotiations are a process and take time, and this is a major piece of legislation, and it takes more time than average.” A DNC spokesman, Hari Sevugan, sees things differently: “Wait, Mitt Romney flip-flopped on an issue?! No, way!” he said.
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Can Mitt Romney Win Conservatives Back?
Now THAT is HILARIOUS what the DNC spokesman said!!!!!
Posted by: sarah | July 30, 2009, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm
Perhaps Romney might ask that question to the Americans who do not have health insurance as well as to those who get ripped offed by the companies with which they supposedly do have insurance.
Posted by: BachisBest | July 30, 2009, 7:28 pm 7:28 pm
Obama wants to get it done in a hurry because he know’s that his popular support is quickly slipping. Romney’s Ideas have been tested and he was able to gather together both repubs and dems to come to a resolution.
Posted by: will | July 30, 2009, 8:00 pm 8:00 pm
A bill that spends trillions of dollars should be carefully discussed. The public is generally disgusted with the tactics of Bush and Obama to push legislation through without adequate discussion or even time to read the bills. In the case of the tarp or the stimulus bill there was a not quite plausible urgency. This is not even remotely true of health care. I want to comment on one aspect of the proposed legislation as the house version stands it excludes benefits to illegal residents. But with a high level of deceit and cynicism the house has narrowly defeated amendments that require verification. So the house near the pinnacle of deception have placed in a provision in to law that Pelosi and her gang expect to be be violated. The lobbyist for the illegal have in fact congratulated on the deceit.
Posted by: merchantilist | July 30, 2009, 10:35 pm 10:35 pm
Romney and his flack PR spokesman are twisting the truth. The Massachusetts House and Senate passed a health care bill and Romney vetoed large portions of it with a line item veto.
The House and Senate overrode almost all his line item vetoes and the bill passed in nits original form. Now he attempts to take credit for every thing he objected to while he was governor
Posted by: Philip of MA | July 30, 2009, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
Romney objected to any health care changes in MA. His flack backed him up then. Now Romney and flack are attempting to take credit for a bill in which he used his line item power to gut the bull. The MA House and Senate overrode the line item vetoes and with the overrides the bill became law with no other action from Romney
Posted by: Philip of MA | July 30, 2009, 11:49 pm 11:49 pm
The Taxpayers Foundation of Massachusetts, and the Heritage Foundation have both come out in the last few days and refuted many of the lies spreading about Massachusetts healthcare. For one thing, it is not over budget as claimed. For a second thing, the budget has only increased by 3/10th of 1% the last three years, and that was only because they were subsidizing more people. Thirdly, they are shelling out less money now than they were before they even had a plan. Is the plan perfect, no! the Dems have controlled it for the last three years, so what do you expect?
Posted by: Conservativeguy | July 31, 2009, 12:43 am 12:43 am
When Mitt Romney and his offshore based companies start paying their fair share of taxes then he can question and/or voice an opinion. Until then he needs to shut the h e l l up!!! It takes a lot of nerve to spend your life cheating the system and then turn around and question it!!
Posted by: dk | July 31, 2009, 1:48 am 1:48 am
Everyone talks about the attacks on Palin because the DNC fears her..Open your eyes, people, they fear the fix it, credible Mitt Romney as well. Not attacking religion, so here we go with Health care…We are hearing two sides to this story and I believe it is the fear of Mitt beating Obama…Think about it and what is at stake…Romney 2012…He is a leader and follows Our Constitution….
Posted by: Paulee | July 31, 2009, 7:54 am 7:54 am
The rush, Mr. Romney, is because the longer a bill sets with Congress, the likelihood will grow that our misguided elected leaders will F with it to obliteration; which is exactly what Mr. Romney and his insurance industry-loving ilk want in the first place. The Republican party is brazenly pro-business and anti-middle and lower class. I truly can’t understand why anyone, other than the wealthy, are Republican. To those people I say, they don’t care about you or whether you have health care, and they make that point time and time again.
Posted by: DaveM | July 31, 2009, 9:14 am 9:14 am
I don’t get Hari Sevugan’s joke. How is it a flip flop to warn the Obama Administration to slow down? The liberals love to label Romney as a flip flopper and it rarely applies. It’s just their easy answer that isn’t really an answer. I’m not fooled by the fact that they have no satisfactory answer to why they don’t slow down. We all realize they’re hemorrhaging support with every day that goes by. Take the time to do it right. Tossing out an insult about Romney doesn’t side track my brain. The American public isn’t so feeble minded as the liberals think we are.
Posted by: Dixie | July 31, 2009, 10:01 am 10:01 am
As they say in Italy, “Domani! Domani!” (“tomorrow! tomorrow!”)… the Republicans made no effort to fix the country’s health care problem”S” during the six years of a Republican controlled congress and White House (2001 to 2007) … “Nada”…. “Zilch!”
Do you “reallllllllllllly” think they want such a great idea as a universal health care program to succeed under the Democratic controled administration and congress now? LOL … That would make the democrats look like heroes and Republicans look like crap.
This is just another delay tactic by the “Neigh-Sayers”, a.k.a. “the birthers”, to prevent a Democratic party success.
(1) Who put the first man on the moon… a democratic President with a democratic congress.
(2) Who got us out of the Great Depression… a democrat President and with a democratic congress.
(3) Who “fixed” a broken national health care system? …. by all means, not the Republicans… and they’ll do EVERYTHING to prevent another Democratic party success.
Bunch of losers.
Posted by: X-Republican Because of Bush | July 31, 2009, 11:50 am 11:50 am
None of these posts answer the basic question “Whats the Rush?” What logic says that enacting something potientialy worst than what we have is the best course, by sheer determinination to pass, has to be better, when no one really understands the proposals? All of the polls I have seen indicate that 80% of Americans are satisfied with their current plans and medical attention. Primary attention should be given to the other 20% first, not up end the entire country in a mad rush to pass something that is overall not good for the majority? Terminating senior citizens, to make way for 13 million illegal votes, seems to be the main goal. POLITICAL CONTROL.
Posted by: ZK | July 31, 2009, 2:10 pm 2:10 pm
Klein points to Romney rightly criticising the artificial deadline of Obama, which was to pass reform before his popularity wanes. This is truly an artifice and not a valid reason to ram health care reform through. This deadline makes it all about Obama.
Romney never said there should be NO deadlines, only no artificial deadlines. Real deadlines can be helpful in planning and executing any type of reform. Romney is right, Obama is wrong.
Klein is distorting this criticism purposely to malign Romney. Why is it the media prefers to twist Romney’s words rather than to actually examine the truth of them?
Posted by: Lori | July 31, 2009, 3:52 pm 3:52 pm
There are things that could be done to improve the system without the incredible akeover of our personal lives that congress is tossing around. They won’t do it right because they have to appease their real employers and that isn’t us.
Posted by: patriotgirl76 | July 31, 2009, 3:58 pm 3:58 pm
Mitt is the man!
Sooo, Romney vetoed some,and those liberals over rode him! good ! Now that
proves he is conservative enough to elect to the Whitehouse!
Posted by: gene | July 31, 2009, 4:32 pm 4:32 pm
Ask yourself one question … Where is the Republican health care alternative plan?
There isn’t one. Their whole plan is based on stopping the Obama plan, for political gain. Sen. DeMint gleefully acknowledged that.
Shouldn’t the Republican Party seek to improve the nation, or have they fallen into the Rush Limbaugh mindset that we must “destroy the country to save it”?
Posted by: Gus | July 31, 2009, 4:33 pm 4:33 pm
Mitt should shut the H____ up, sit down, and let people who actually care about the country instead of gaining power do what they can to fix all the problems Bush, Cheney, Rove, Hastert, Frist, and company created for us.
Posted by: Mittsucks | July 31, 2009, 11:08 pm 11:08 pm
Gus Said: “Ask yourself one question … Where is the Republican health care alternative plan? There isn’t one.”
==================
Gus… I would have to disagree with you on this one. The Repubbikans do have a plan…. it’s called, “the birthers” plan….. LOL.
Posted by: X-Republican Because of Bush | August 1, 2009, 3:16 am 3:16 am
Wow, some of these comments are just ignorant. Uhhhh….who got us out of the great depression….actually it was the democratic president/congress that made it worse. I hate to tell you people but BOTH Dems and Repubs are dirty and only care about their agenda. My wife is a Dr. from a country with government run health care. I would fly to visit her every 3 months while she finished her internship…..It DOESNT work. We have the best health care system in the world. It has its problems but do we really trust the corrput morons of Washington to run our healthcare??? if you think the lines at the DMV and Social Security Office are bad just wait.
Posted by: mb | August 1, 2009, 8:29 am 8:29 am
Millionaire mitt romney doesn’t have to worry about health care for himself and he certainly isn’t worried about health care for you and I. And since he is a prominent member of rush dimbaugh’s party, the party of NO he is very good at shooting his big dumb mouth off.
Posted by: nit wit mitt | August 1, 2009, 10:08 pm 10:08 pm
I think the President made it plain and simple when he said that if there isn’t a goal date, that things have a way of not getting done in Washington…
I mean how much time do they need???
After being pushed off the table in 94…Even Bush was talking about health care reform back in 2006…
Instead of whining, if Congressman and woman would get to reading those 1,000 pages through the August recess…they would have plenty of time to be well inform on this bill instead of trying to mislead the public with misinformation.
But we can all see that the plan of some like DeMint is to stall the plan and kill it still without even reading it. So they can have some sense of defeat over this President. (his Waterloo)
The opposition doesn’t care what is in this bill, they just want to oppose anything this President says or does… and that’s sad…
But that realization has had a huge effect on me as a citizen and a voter.
Posted by: theafalcon200 | August 2, 2009, 6:38 am 6:38 am
I would like your news agence to be honest about the heathcare rreform bill and it’s contents, how it affects the American people. If this passes the govt. will have full access to our bank accounts, so they can make withdrawels,etc. also, end of life decisions, we will have NO choice on our doctors, what kind of care we can have except the govt. panel (not even doctors)will decide. All sorts of hidden items are in this bill. This means you and your family too. This is why MOST Americans are against this bill. I agree we need HC reform, but this is dangerous. We lose our most of our freedoms.
Posted by: Nancy | August 2, 2009, 1:23 pm 1:23 pm
to Mitt Romney….what do you mean Rush, you republicans had the last 20 years and sat on your hands and collected pay checks…ripped off the country before you turned it over to the democratic party…/ No Mitt…its time for healthcare reform…and the time is now NO MORE WAITING…that is what you Republicans do best.
Posted by: lindalu | August 2, 2009, 5:53 pm 5:53 pm
Also Mitt whats the Rush???? I bet you have great insurance and you look terribly healthy, what about the person that has cancer and cannot get insurance because of pre existing conditions….ask that person, what the Rush is.
Posted by: lindalu | August 2, 2009, 5:56 pm 5:56 pm
Mitt is without the only dog in this fight that has history behind him . Obama knows very little about health care even less than Hillary in 92. Obama is a community organizer and a major part of Acorn’s power. The average american is bring cond by a soomth talking highly educated conman. Mitt the Morman is doing his part to maintain our culture with a large family and knows the reason the moslums will strap a bomb on to kill the infidel , thats us. Mitt knows health better than most. I know. My wife got her PHD on this subject (The dissatisfaction with the US health care system ,and she drummed into my hed.
Posted by: stanley kowalski | August 2, 2009, 7:35 pm 7:35 pm
Let me see if I can help you understand where your analogy breaks down. Romney spent three years and a half years negotiating a bipartisan bill with the legislature and major stakeholders that would change one state’s healthcare and then leaned on them to pass it with just a few months left in his term. He was conversant with the details in all phases. Obama has let legislative leaders drive the entire process, is not conversant with the details and the players to anywhere near the extent Romney was and now seeks to force a vote on a total rehaul of one sixth of the American economy, barely four months after the process began.
Posted by: Lance E | August 3, 2009, 1:08 am 1:08 am