Newsweek's Katie Connolly interviewed former Massachusetts Governor (and former GOP presidential candidate) Mitt Romney about his experiences with health care legislation yesterday. When she asked him "What lessons can be gleaned from your experience in Massachusetts?", Romney replied:
After we crafted the architecture of our plan, the first person I went to was Ted Kennedy. He and I met numerous times and what we fashioned was not perfect in either one of our eyes, but we worked together, because only together could we know that we would have the support of all the parties necessary to make it work.
The states are laboratories of democracy. Well, our state passed a bill. It's been in place now for several years. Have they studied it? Have they spoken with the Republicans and Democrats in Masssachusetts? Have they spoken with hospitals? Doctors? Have they sent the GAO there to take it apart to see what is working well and what is not? Nobody has given me a call, except Republicans. I've received no calls from Democrats saying what do you think about it? What would you do differently if you were to do it today? There's a whole series of things I'd do differently. And yet, there seems to be such a rush to act. I understand that President Obama wants to get this done in his first term, but more important than getting it done in the first year is getting it done right, before he is out of office. There is time here to get it done right.
What's Obama supposed to ask Mitt to explain? How to screw up health care through rationing, high taxes, obscene spending, and over-regulation? Both men have mastered those skill sets already.
Connolly also asked Romney "In terms of the reform proposals before Congress, what do you see that you like and dislike so far?"
I'm not happy that the President wants to provide a so-called public option. There is no need for the government to become an insurance company. I'm convinced, as many before me have said, that this is a step towards a single payer system; that it will result in billions, if not hundreds of billions, of subsidies down the road and a new entitlement, which is one of the last things America needs right now. On the other hand I am happy that he is actually working to reform healthcare. It's important for us to get everyone insured. It's important that there be an effort made to reduce the excessive inflation in the healthcare sector.
This is just rich. Mitt Romney, the man who orchestrated Massachusetts government's takeover of its citizens' health care, is warning about a government takeover of health care?
I think Mitt's been hitting the medical marijuana.
7:00 Update: We've got health care, yes we do! We've got health care, how 'bout you?
That isn't a glass of sherry gripped in David Frum's sweaty fist, Palinistas. It's a mug of scalding hot coffee, and it's going right down your throats. Personally, I'm stuck in an alternative reality where a hardcore leftist is running up astronomical deficits and double-digit unemployment, in the service of a liberty-destroying collectivist agenda. I wonder how many hard feelings the voters of 2012 will carry for the woman who gave 110% effort to save us from this little branch in the time line, and has the battle scars to show for it... assuming they can tear themselves away from obsessing over those "statistical studies that show her as the only vice presidential nominee in ticket to have hurt her ticket."
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