Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney rejected the compliment to his statewide ‘Romneycare’ program that President Obama paid him last week.
“I think the president failed to learn the lessons that came from the’ experience in Massachusetts,” the 2012 Republican presidential candidate said on Sunday morning’s “Meet the Press.” “Imposing something that in some ways resembles what we did in Massachusetts, on the entire nation and particularly in a dishonest way, without telling people what was entailed, is something that the American people are rejecting overwhelmingly.”
Last Wednesday, Obama attended a healthcare rally at Faneuil Hall in Boston, a state whose Romneycare health plan was overridden by the federal government. The president focused on the successes within the implementation of the Massachusetts plan.
“Mitt Romney and I ran a long and spirited campaign against each other,” Obama said. “But I have always believed he did the right thing on health care.”
Romney, who has remained out of the spotlight since his defeat by Obama last year, cast those words aside, saying states need to develop their own legislation, not a one-size-fits-all plan. Since Massachusetts slowly phased in requirements through a slower rollout process, Romney said his state was able to avoid the types of glitches that the healthcare website is currently seeing.
The biggest problem Romney had with the Affordable Care Act was the incorrect message Obama shared with Americans in order to market his ideas.
“He told people they could keep their insurance and that was not the truth, and whether you like the model of Obamacare or not, the fact that the president sold it on a basis that was not true has undermined the foundation of his second term,” said Romney, who also mentioned that NBC News reported earlier that six million people would lose insurance with the entrance of Obamacare.
Even if the Department of Health and Human Services is able to get the marketplace site working properly, Romney said the loss of insurance by millions will devastate the president’s second term, sending it into peril.
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