Health-care reform: Has Team Romney embraced the individual mandate?
| Washington
Has Team Romney endorsed the individual mandate, the central pillar of President Obama鈥檚 health-care law that the GOP otherwise loves to hate?
A Romney official seemed to indicate that Wednesday.
Commenting on the harsh ad just released by a pro-Obama "super PAC," in which an ex-steelworker basically blames Bain Capital for his uninsured wife鈥檚 death, spokeswoman Andrea Saul told Fox News that 鈥渋f people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney鈥檚 health-care plan, they would have had health care.鈥�
Yes, they would have, because the law Romney signed into office when he ran the Bay State requires it. (It also includes subsidies to help lower-income residents purchase insurance, as does Mr. Obama鈥檚 national law.)
It鈥檚 possible Ms. Saul鈥檚 reference was inadvertent. But Romney, who has aggressively distanced himself from his landmark legislation, appeared to cautiously embrace it during an appearance Wednesday in Des Moines, Iowa.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got to do some reforms in health care, and I have some experience doing that, as you know,鈥� Romney said.
The presumptive Republican nominee went on to criticize the Affordable Care Act, known pejoratively as Obamacare. He said he could make a 鈥渂etter setting鈥� than the incumbent when it came to preventing people with preexisting conditions from聽being dropped by insurers, assuring access to insurance for all, and so forth.
Still, some conservatives were apoplectic over the 鈥淩omneycare鈥� references. Notable among them was Erick Erickson, editor of the RedState blog, who after learning of Saul鈥檚 comments tweeted that they could lose Romney the election.
鈥淭his was an unforced error of monumental idiocy,鈥� he wrote Wednesday.
Conservatives should not allow Romney to tack left on this issue, Mr. Erickson wrote. If they do, enough voters from the center-right spectrum of the party might sit out the election to allow Obama to win.
鈥淭he reaction should come quickly and be vocal or the Romney campaign, which is not conservative, will take it as a tacit admission from conservatives that it is safe to let their hair down on these issues,鈥� Erickson .
Meanwhile, conservative pundit Ann Coulter . Others bemoaned the fact that the Romney camp had not just dismissed the Bain ad as completely illegitimate and refused to discuss its specifics at all.
The ad 鈥� from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action 鈥� has been widely denounced as unfair by independent fact-checkers. It does not mention that Romney says he left Bain Capital years before the steel company mentioned in the ad, GST Steel, went bankrupt. Nor does it mention that foreign competition was battering all US steel firms at the time, that the wife of steelworker Joe Soptic had her primary insurance through her own employer, or that she died some five years after GST went under.
Unsurprisingly, liberals have been quick to use Saul鈥檚 comment to try to argue that the widely debunked Priorities USA ad is in fact a clarifying moment in the presidential race.
鈥淭he Romney campaign now seems to be claiming that government-established universal health care is the answer to what to do about people like Ms. Soptic who lack insurance,鈥� wrote liberal Greg Sargent on his Plum Line . 鈥淭hat鈥檚 Obama鈥檚 argument for Obamacare.鈥�
