Saturday, October 24, 2015

Mitt Romney takes the credit for Obamacare

I knew this would happen, eventually. I'm surprised it only took three years, though.
Mitt Romney is finally ready to take credit for Obamacare.

Speaking to the Boston Globe for their obituary of Staples founder Thomas G. Stemberg, who died Friday, the former Massachusetts praised Stemberg for his involvement in pushing “Romneycare,” which in turn, Romney said, led to Obamacare, giving “a lot of people” health coverage.

“Without Tom pushing it, I don’t think we would have had Romneycare,” Romney said. “Without Romneycare, I don’t think we would have Obamacare. So, without Tom a lot of people wouldn’t have health insurance.”

It’s hard to imagine Romney saying such a thing during the 2012 election cycle. Back then Romney was stumbling and bumbling his way to create some distance between the health care reform he championed as a governor and President Obama’s signature health care law.

The focus by conservatives on Obamacare as the leading example of everything that was wrong with Obama made for some extremely awkward moments for the eventual Republican nominee. The similarities between the Massachusetts and the federal laws even prompted one of Romney’s primary rivals to coin the term “Obamneycare.”

The next day Romney promised to repeal Obamacare if elected and vowed that on his first day in the White House, he would “grant a waiver to all 50 states from Obamacare."

Of course, the whole point of 'Obamacare' was that it was the Republican health care plan. Congressional Democrats adopted the Republican health care plan in the hope that Republicans would join them in a bipartisan effort to get health care to the American people.

Of course, what happened was that every Republican instantly turned against their own plan. But then, Republican leaders had vowed, before Barack Obama even took office, to do nothing the Democrats wanted, no matter what it was.

Note that this was while we were in the middle of two wars, not to mention right when our economy was crashing into a black hole in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. This was when the Republican Party decided - unanimously - to put politics above the good of our country!

PS. Of course, Romney is trying to take back his comments now, after they were noticed. What else did you expect? Funny, isn't it?

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