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.
Meant to say buy this insurance or face fines or imprisonment. sorry- Back on topic. Romney is a changeling. There can be no question about that, none. He has people around him telling him that it's OK to flop positions because no one will remember. That didn't work in '08; people remembered. It won't work in '12. He is a classic case of an insular politician who has no connection with what folks are doing and thinking. But if he wants to spend his millions tilting at windmills again, at least he'll be strengthening the economy.— HeywoodEm
- Maybe Obama better cross the T's and dot the I's before taking a victory lap reselling his healthcare bill. Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.
- Any of our friends on the left want to address this? ***President Obama delivered his gift today to House Democrats who provided the margin of victory in Sunday's health care vote: Signing an executive order re-asserting restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion. The event provided a stark contrast to yesterday's health care bill signing in an East Room packed with whooping, cheering Democrats -- this one took place in the Oval Office with 14 Democratic lawmakers, and no press allowed in to witness. "It ensures that health care, the law the President signed yesterday, maintains the status quo of the federal law prohibiting the the use of federal dollars for abortion," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.*** http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/03/obama-signs-order-re-affirming-ban-on-federal-funds-for-abortion/1?loc=interstitialskip— NEPhilly
- Ron Paul won the straw poll. Which to me indicates the ideological battle within the Republican party is being won by those on the libertarian side of the argument. We need to run someone who can get back to basics like fiscal responsibility, self reliancy, low taxes, small government, pro business and free markets-not crony capitalism. If we stick to that the coalition of independents and conservatives will remake the Republican party and it will easily win elections. There will always be the 30% who clamor for more government to provide services that they do not have to pay for- It's not worth catering to that voting block as self reliancy is never going to appeal to them.
- This regime just cannot stop spending money. Basically the government will pay the pensions for prior employees of defunct unionized trucking companies. http://investors.yrcw.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=454243
- Chris, of course people will keep their insurance if they lose their jobs (isn't that called COBRA) and they can get insurance if they start their own business. BUT, they will still have to pay for it, or else go on Medicaid, right? It isn't going to be free, is it?— tom - wilmington, de
- NEPHILLY; I wish the republicans WOULD run a 'real' conservative in 2012. Who would that be exactly? Are their any right of center (not extremes like Palin and Huckaby)Republicans that have a chance? The Republicans have to stop listening to their extreme base and admit that what they are saying isn't going to work. I have a hard time believing that they will do that. Until they do I cannot be expected to vote for them. (I did by the way vote for Reagan in 1984 and Bush in 1988).— James TL
- MOCKY: Death threats to Dem. Congressman, their families, and damage to one of their private homes. 10 Dem. Congressman asking for more protection for them and their families. ............... I know it either didn't happen without you seeing it, or it's a far left wing trick to blame little old ladies from the tea party who wouldn't bend a wing on a fly. Imagine blaming a Conse 'Pub!!— Talvenada
- JamesTL- You are just repeating left wing talking points. When the Republican party runs liberals masking as conservatives we tend to lose. See John McCain. We won in Mass and NJ and Va by touting fiscal responsibilty and low taxes and won.
- Sounds mild compared to the tactics used by Bill Ayers of weather underground fame. Maybe they will make the culprits esteemed professors of Education at the Univ. of Illinios.— Alvenada
- NEPhilly and Tom, If you lose your job, you can continue your insurance via COBRA as long as you can pay for it. However, if you lose your job, you may not be able to pay for it. What if you want to start your own business but a family member has a pre-existent condition. You will not be able to get that person covered at all. (This is the reason some people stay in jobs just for the benefits, even though they would rather do something else. The American dream is to work for yourself but insurance policy over the past sixty years has hindered that. NEP, the difference now is that you can buy into a policy as the same rate as everybody else. I know a number of independent business men and women who dropped their health insurance years ago because it became unaffordable. As for myself, I have insurance through my employer, but over the past 8 years, my salary has increased by 20+ percent but my takehome has gone down every year. And I consider myself lucky.— Chris Landee
- Maybe I am running low on sympathy for the trumped up allegations of intimidation by some democrats. conservative speakers are regularly subjected to violent attacks on college campuses. Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and I have all been the targets of infamous campus attacks.— Alvenada
- DINGELL must resign!! Zero tolerance!! Replace him with Mark Sanford or John Ensign or Larry Craig or David Vitter. These are men that did the right thing!!— Talvenada
- MOCKY: You got death threats to your children? That is tame? Compared to what carrying out the threats? If they start killing, you are going to say the left does the same thing, right? Trumped-up, all lies, right? Fox NEWS should come out and prove your thinking!!— Talvenada
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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