Romney the reformer, and the risks of roadkill
A Republican's health reform is similar to Obama's health reform
Romney the reformer, and the risks of roadkill
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
It has been fascinating to watch Mitt Romney during these first days of the health reform era (or, as the Republicans call it, "Armageddon"). We've long known, of course, that Romney has a penchant for retooling his convictions to fit the exigencies of the moment, but what this presidential aspirant is doing this week - shedding his old image as a responsible, pragmatic executive; brandishing a pitchfork so that he can pander to the most irrational elements of the conservative base - is downright breath-taking.
There's no mystery why he's doing this. He wants to win the '12 GOP nomination (although he has yet to formally declare his candidacy), and he figures that the best way to win the key early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina is to convince right-leaning primary voters that he too sees Barack Obama as a socialist/fascist/Kenyan/whatever and a betrayer of America besides. Which is why, on Monday, Romney claimed that the president has "betrayed his oath to the nation" by signing "unconstitutional" health care reform; and why, yesterday, he circulated an email asking his political supporters to donate money to the cause of repealing health care reform.
And yet, despite his latest fervently rightward tilt, I suspect that Romney may well wind up as roadkill after his rival contestants out him as a phony. It's a 30-second attack ad waiting to happen, and it has the advantage of being essentially true:
The Obama health reform law that Romney purportedly loathes actually resembles, in many key respects, the Massachusetts health reform law that Romney championed and signed as governor - starting with the individual mandate, the requirement that all citizens purchase health insurance. The same requirement that Romney now finds so objectionable.
Rather than having me list the provisions that the two laws have in common, let's turn the job over to Fox News. Seventeen days ago, host Chris Wallace sliced Romney to ribbons on this very issue. Here's Wallace: "Let's look at the plan that you signed into law in Massachusetts in 2006. You have an individual mandate. You have an employer mandate. You have subsidies for some of the uninsured. You set minimum insurance coverage standards. Again, a lot of emails I got from conservatives make this point. They say it sure sounds an awful lot like Obamacare....We got a lot of email from conservatives this week who said that you are the wrong man" to be making the case against Obama.
This is not good. A Republican presidential aspirant who runs afoul of Fox News might as well give it up and go sell shoes. At one point, Romney insisted that his reform law had "no government insurance, no government option, if you will." Wallace retorted, "Well, there's no government option in the Obama plan anymore, either." To which Romney sputtered, "No, that's right, that's right, and so what we did was entirely different..." It was ugly, watching this guy trying to shed his own record.
The record shows that, when Romney was governor and closest to his true self as a business-oriented executive, he worked overtime to cover the uninsured and require everyone to purchase coverage - with government subsidies, if necessary. He became the first (and he's still the only) governor to sign a health insurance mandate.
On April 8, 2006, shortly before signing the Massachusetts law, he talked up health reform on NPR, sounding much like Obama today: "We're spending a billion dollars giving health care to people who don't have insurance. And my question was, could we take that billion dollars and help the poor purchase insurance? Let them pay what they can afford. We'll subsidize what they can't."
He told NPR that the reforms would work only if everyone bought coverage. He said that those citizens who can afford insurance would be required to buy it - "otherwise, you're just passing your expenses on to someone else." Obama couldn't have said it better.
But my favorite part was when Romney attacked those who would defy the law and refuse to buy coverage: "That's not Republican, that's not Democratic, that's not libertarian. That's just wrong."
Today, it's clear that Romney 2.0 (or perhaps it's 3.0) would prefer that conservative Republican voters ignore the earlier Romney or, better yet, remain blissfully unaware. The latter scenario is not very likely. The conservative Club for Growth, the interest group that seeks to expunge all moderate impulses from the GOP, is already assailing Romney; as Club official Andy Roth reportedly remarked two weeks ago, "The individual mandate is diametrically against what free-market conservatives believe in," and if Romney thinks he won't be held accountable for his mandate, "then I think he is in the wrong party."
And wait to see what happens during the long presidential primary season (which, believe it or not, begins in a mere eight months, right after the midterms). Rival Republican candidates will likely bring up the Massachusetts law in the debates, and they will likely distill its essence in the TV ads. Just like in the Fox News gig, Romney will have to spend precious time on defense, explaining how his law differs from Obama's law. He who toils on defense is least likely to survive.
In theory, Romney could take the opposite tack - by pointing out that the health coverage mandate concept was actually hatched by the conservative Heritage Foundation back in the early '90s, as a way to get people to take responsibility for themselves - but, of course, it would be political suicide for him to suggest that conservatives are now behaving as hypocrites, attacking their own mandate concept only because Obama has embraced it. And besides, there's no way Romney can flip flop yet again, now that he has morphed into a placard-wielding populist who's apparently intent on assailing the mandate embraced by his former self. His new, overcompensating self may be his only hope for capturing conservative hearts, tenuous as those prospects might be.
So he'll have to twist in the wind indefinitely, even as the White House keeps twisting the knife. On Monday, press secretary Robert Gibbs mentioned the similarities between Obama's law and Romney's law, before adding: "I'm sure Gov. Romney hates every time I say that." You can bet on it.
Wow, Foxnews actually asks tough questions of republicans. if only, cnn, msnbc...etc. did the same of their party.— Scholes- Jeb 2012! You Betcha!— PA_Dutch
- Y-PEST: How about Bush-Cheney? Jeb & Liz?— Talvenada
- GOVERNMENT CHEESE: Wrong!! ..... one little pearl...the IRS is immediately hiring 15,000 agents to enforce this... Bad Conse 'Pub! You NEVER give the other side credit for anything; you only dis them. Key word: ONLY!!!— Talvenada
- Rep Dingell's view of Obamacare http://www.breitbart.tv/shocking-audio-rep-dingell-says-obamacare-will-eventually-control-the-people— Fisher
- Talvenada, for a minute I thought you were suggesting some sort of incredibly naughty campaign slogan...then I looked them up and found that it's Mary who is the gay Cheney, not Liz...Either way, I give that combo even less chance than Bush/Palin!— Yersinia Pestis
- Y-PEST: Mary could run for a revived BULL Moose Party, no?— Talvenada
- GOV'MENT CHEESE: Just don't mention the pearl, but do carp about unemployment. That's what you're suppose to do. Obama is 100% bad and Bush was 95% good.— Talvenada
- FISHER: breitbart? Isn't he the guy behind proving every Acorn employee is a crook, including Obama?— Talvenada
- tal and yers, I knew Jeb would get your goat:) Throwing in Liz Cheney as his running mate is a stroke of genius. I wish I would have thought of it:)— NEPhilly
- NEPHILLY, You ask about the answer to the question "Are you better off than you were four years ago." Millions of Americans will be able to say that even though they lost their job, they didn't lose their health insurance. They are free to start their own business rather than working someplace just for the health benefits. They will know that they will have health insurance even if they get sick (unlike now). They will know that they can change jobs and still be covered, even with a pre-existing condition. Millions of Americans will be able to say: "Yes, I am better off, and no thanks to the Republicans."— Chris Landee
- Go Ramsey: "The parents need to step up to the plate and stop blaming somebody else. 'Oh it's the schools,' or, 'We don't have enough to do in the rec center,' we don't have this, that and the other. Now find something for them to do. Why don't you try sitting down with them and spending some time with them, instead of throwing them in front of the TV, or out on the streets to find something to do? I mean, you had 'em, you raise 'em, you take care of 'em. When they come to me, I got something else for them." The commissioner says, bluntly, he's not in the social work business. He says they are police officers and they'll lock up the kids who are breaking the law. Nothing less is acceptable.— BarneyMiller
- chris, I don't think there are enough Americans in any of the situations you mentioned that would make this 'reform' popular. Are you saying millions more Americans are going to lose their jobs in the upcoming 3 years? If you lose your job now your health insurance is paid for somehow? How is it different now than it was before if you start your own business? You have to buy your own policy. You can't stay on your previous employers. If Americans now get sick they don't lose their health insurance. Pre-exiting conditions is the one area that needed to be improved, but now people can just pay the penalty & wait until they are sick before buying health insurance. Like being unisnsured & in a car accident & then calling Geico & they have to take you as a client. It is silly. In my opinion, millions of unemployed Americans will not be better off in 2012 than they were in 2008 & if I am right the dems will pay the political price.— NEPhilly
- Hate to interrupt the Mike and Friend lovefest, but during the elction of Scott Brown, the majority of Massachusetts liked their plan. Also, calling people who read (and learn) more than yourself has always been a tool of populist fascist movements. Friend, I doubt you ever worked digging ditches or farming seawater so you're probably a loser who lives in a homeless shelter. Does that make sense? No. Am I qualified to say that to you? No. Get into the game and make points instead of criticizing the writer.— HandNik
- Is the IRS really hiring 15,000 new agents to enforce and coerce this program on the American people? What country is this? But this insurance for face fines or imprisonment? nice!
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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