Friday, October 23, 2015

Did Mitt Romney just admit that RomneyCare was the inspiration for ObamaCare?

The media is buzzing over Mitt Romney's recent statement about RomneyCare and ObamaCare. This is what he said
Romney also credited Mr. Stemberg with persuading him to push for health care reform in Massachusetts when he was governor.
Romney recalled that shortly after he was elected, Mr. Stemberg asked him why he ran for governor. Romney said he wanted to help people, and Mr. Stemberg replied that if he really wanted to help, he should give everyone access to health care, which Romney said he hadn’t really considered before.
“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.”
What Mitt Romney said was that Tom Stemberg was the guy that got the ball rolling on the issue of improving access to health insurance. Mitt Romney didn't say that his plan was the source for Obama's plan. He simply mean Tom was the guy who got the snowball rolling down the hill and it grew from a state issue to a national issue.

Mitt Romney should have thought carefully when he spoke because it didn't come out the way he intended for it to come out.  As a result, everyone is now claiming that Mitt Romney is now admitting that RomneyCare was the inspiration for ObamaCare. 
 
The truth is Mitt Romney's health care plan was not the inspiration for ObamaCare. The idea was cribbed from Hillary Clinton
For one thing, Obama adopted Hillary's plan to the extent that ObamaCare should probably be called HillaryCare. There were similarities, because again, Obama and Hillary had no ideas of their own, they were vomiting up the dregs of liberal think tanks handfed to them by staffers.



Liberals actually blasted the Obama plan because it was looser, it didn't come with mandates or compel people to buy health insurance.


Here, let Paul Krugman tell it like it was: "The Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care."

And then Obama turned around and adopted mandates. HillaryCare became ObamaCare.



At a primary debate, Hillary complained that "Senator Obama has consistently said that I would force people to have health care whether they could afford it or not."



And Obama countered, "I have consistently said that Senator Clinton's got a good health care plan. I think I have a good health care plan. I think mine is better. But I have said that 95 percent of our health care plan is similar." (Source.)

The truth is this:

1) RomneyCare and ObamaCare are NOT the same.

2) Obama did NOT use RomneyCare as a template for his health care plan.