Mitt Romney: My Mass. Healthcare Plan Is ‘Fundamentally Conservative'

Written By : Warner Todd Huston

Romney did it again. On Fox News he linked Romneycare to conservative principles, an outrageous act in the eyes of any conservative. But hold the boat, people, because Romney didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is a conservative policy. And therein lies the weasel words that Romney has used to describe the Massachusetts healthcare plan he was so proud to pass when he was the Governor of the state.

To the video…



Transcript:

I’m happy to stand by the things I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign. What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts. The plan is still favored there by 3:1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle because the people take personal responsibility rather than turning to the government for free care.

Now, let’s look at what Romney said here. He didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is “fundamentally conservative.” He said the concept that people should take responsibility for their own healthcare is a fundamentally conservative idea.

Such as it is, he’s right. That IS a fundamentally conservative idea.

But as Romney has repeatedly done since he signed that disastrous, socialist, far from conservative piece of legislation, he has weasel worded his description of that law. As he’s done before, in this clip he illicitly linked conservative principles to Romneycare by focusing at a micro level on the single idea that we should take care of our own healthcare and linking that real conservative principle to his actions as if conservative principles are the guiding forces behind Romneycare. The problem with Romney’s characterization of the issue is that his legislation is fundamentally not conservative. It is big government, socialist, authoritarian nonsense. It’s not conservative at all. Romney tries to us that one tiny conservative idea buried under miles of socialist ideas as misdirection for the ills that Romneycare forces on the people of the Bay State.

Romney also tries an additional rhetorical trick by focusing on Tenth Amendment ideals, saying that his effort in Mass. was a “state only” effort, one that he would not recommend for every state. Romney correctly notes that one of our founding principles is that the states should be free to experiment with policy and implement what voters want free of interference by the federal government — a Tenth Amendment ideal. But what Romney is doing here is slyly trying to cloak his monumentally non-conservative healthcare law in the conservative ideal of the Tenth Amendment as if Romneycare is conservative when it isn’t conservative in any way at all.

It would be like using a cop’s position as an officer of the law as cover for his breaking, entering, and stealing from a citizen’s home, like saying it is OK simply because he’s a police man. Just because this mythical cop is an officer of the law does not mean his actions are legitimate. In a like way, just because we have a conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment this does not mean that a Romneycare law implemented under the principle of that Amendment is a conservative idea or even an advisable policy, for that matter.

We should also point out that even as this particular issue is the only item he’s not fully flip flopped on — much to the consternation of conservatives everywhere, Romney has flip flopped on whether or not he thinks Romneycare is as good for the nation as it was for Massachusetts. Not long ago Romney was saying that he felt Romneycare was a model for the nation. Now, all of a sudden, he says he never said that, he says that Romneycare was only good for Massachusetts (even though it clearly isn’t) and that he would not recommend it for the nation.

In any case, the point here is that Romney makes it impossible to logically sustain the idea that Obamacare is bad and should be repealed when there isn’t anything substantively different between Romneycare — which he constantly defends and says is great — and Obamacare. The core issue that Republicans and many independents would rally to vote for Romney over is nullified by his constant defense of Romneycare.

This is the main reason why Romney cannot beat Obama in 2012.