Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Mitt Romney op-ed: As first act, out with ObamaCare

With his major Health Care address scheduled for tomorrow, Mitt Romney has written an op-ed in the USA Today:
Health care is more than just one-sixth of the American economy. It is a source of well-being for individuals and families. We are blessed with much that is good in American health care. But we have taken a turn for the worse with ObamaCare, with its high taxes and vastly expanded federal control over our lives. I believe the better course is to empower the states to determine their own health care futures. 
First, the good news: Health care in the United States has made remarkable advances in our lifetimes. Dramatic improvements in medical technology have expanded both the length and quality of life. And the U.S. health care system continues to provide consumers with many choices. 
But our health care system has several well-known problems: high and rising costs, significant numbers of Americans without insurance, and glaring gaps in quality and efficiency. 
We can fix these problems. Unfortunately, with the passage of ObamaCare last year, the president and the Congress took a wrong turn. ObamaCare will lead to more spending, greater federal involvement in health care and negative effects on U.S. economic activity. The president definitely forgot the admonition to "do no harm." 
My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ObamaCare's top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ObamaCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ObamaCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and value. 
If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare. 
The reforms that I propose, which are based on the same philosophical tenets as the reforms I offered during my last presidential campaign in 2008, return power to the states, improve access by slowing health care cost increases, and make health insurance portable and flexible for today's economy.
Read more HERE.

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7 comments:

Evelio Perez said...

Tonight's speech will make or break Governor Romney, he needs to articulate his plan so that even his most ardent enemy won't be able to twist around his stance on Health Care......

Ann said...

"If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare."

That sounds like a declaration of candidacy to me!

Bill589 said...

Ann,
That was my favorite paragraph, maybe for different reasons then you. I was concerned that a president Romney might not have the aim, and then guts, to scrap Obamacare. I think he is saying and doing exactly the right things to abate that concern. I believe there are ways of lowering costs and getting government out of the process. I hope so. And I hope that is basically what he means. Just in case he does become president.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Sharp eye Ann, It sure looks like he's in with the wording of that statement.

zeke

Revolution 2012 said...

Not only is Romney THE MAN when it comes to fixing the economy, He's THE MAN when it comes to Health Care and knowing what works and what doesn't.

Closer To Home said...

Reading that, I thought "this is too short. I want more details." Now, I know that for 99% of the readers, that was from just enough to too much.

You have to know that Romney didn't float this out there based on some random thoughts he put down on a napkin. I expect that he has been conferring with the best experts in the country for months to come up with a plan that will support the weight of his campaign, and that can be defended against all the attacks by other candidates. (This couldn't be a plan that people shot holes in in just a few days.)

I don't believe that this has to be the only way of doing health care reform. It only has to be reasonable, well-thought-out, sensible. In the end, what we get will be what we can get through Senate filibuster and the house.

I'm hoping for more detail in the Q&A after tomorrow, but I also know that detail can be a dangerous thing.

Corep said...

can i just say i love the fact the drudge has this pasted at the top of his site-
Romney- First thing I would do is undo obamacare
its in like 90 point font !

also loving all the fruitless attempts at pulling a 1994 article out and saying it kills romney on this point.

you gotta think others are hurting if they have to go back 17 years to "find" the magic bullet against Romney.