In an interview with "60 Minutes" on Sunday, the following back and forth was exchanged between Mitt Romney and Scott Pelley:
Pelley: "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
Romney: "Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."
Pelley: "What's the most expensive way to do it? In an emergency room."
Romney: "Again, different states have different ways of doing that. Some provide that care through clinics. Some provide care through emergency rooms. In my state, we found a solution that worked for my state. But I wouldn't take what we did in Massachusetts and say to Texas, 'You've got to take the Massachusetts model.'"
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in March of 2010, Romney stated the following: "Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way."
To be fair, Romney campaign spokeswoman - Amanda Henneberg - spoke out against this apparent flip-flop by the Republican candidate, as pointed out by the Democratic National Committee, by saying:
"Governor Romney made a statement of fact that Americans without health insurance are still able to receive critical care including in some cases through emergency rooms. It is an absurd misreading of his comments to imply that he offered emergency rooms as a 'solution' to our nation's health care challenges.
As president, Mitt Romney will repeal Obamacare and replace it with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that strengthen our health care system making sure that every American, regardless of their health care needs, can find quality, affordable coverage."
Now, to be fair to Ms. Henneberg, Scott Pelley did ask Romney the question, "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
Romney could have gone a number of different directions with that question (as he so often does). He could have just responded in the affirmative and danced around any specifics (as he so often does). He could have responded in the affirmative, but then harped against Obamacare (as he so often does). When he responded with talking about emergency rooms and wording it in a manner that could be taken by some as being sarcastic, he had to know in hindsight, that his response would likely get him into some trouble. While Ms. Henneberg may be partially accurate that the Republican nominee didn't lay claim that emergency rooms were THE solution to our healthcare problem in this country and while I may not give Romney a complete flip-flop, since he didn't fully answer Mr. Pelley's question, I would likely grade him with half of one until he's able to specify further, and that brings us to another problem with his response and his spokeswoman's attempted clarification. If Romney's saying our emergency rooms are the answer to our healthcare dilemma, then he didn't answer the question. If his spokeswoman is at all accurate with what she claimed the former Massachusetts Governor would do to improve our healthcare situation, neither he nor she provided any specifics.
The only "specifics," if we really want to call them that, that the Romney campaign has laid out with regard to healthcare in this country, it's that:
1) Romneycare was great for Massachusetts
2) We must repeal the national twin brother of Romneycare - Obamacare
3) We do like parts of Obamacare, like where kids are able to stay on their parents' insurance until the age of 26 and where people with pre-existing conditions can't be denied coverage
4) We will still repeal all of Obamacare, though
5) Yet we will still keep those two parts of Obamacare while fully repealing it
6) It's an honor to be called the Godfather of Obamacare due to Romneycare and providing the blueprint for Obamacare
7) But still, we will definitely repeal all of Obamacare
8) Without Obamacare, we can provide the nation's uninsured via the emergency rooms. Yes, this will be far more costly to tax-payers and leave many void of taking financial responsibility for themselves by being mandated insurance coverage, but still...
9) That emergency room bit wasn't the solution to the problem, but is just one of many possible solutions
10) To elaborate a bit on that - we have the solution. We're not going to tell you what that is, but trust me, we have it and it's not Obamacare, even though we like a couple portions of it and will keep the, while repealing everything in the bill
Yeah, as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, so eloquently stated recently, "(Republican Party leaders) have specifics coming out of our eyeballs..."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/democrats-pounce-on-romney-over-uninsured-er-care/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/reince-priebus-romney-specifics_n_1907150.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012
Pelley: "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
Romney: "Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."
Pelley: "What's the most expensive way to do it? In an emergency room."
Romney: "Again, different states have different ways of doing that. Some provide that care through clinics. Some provide care through emergency rooms. In my state, we found a solution that worked for my state. But I wouldn't take what we did in Massachusetts and say to Texas, 'You've got to take the Massachusetts model.'"
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in March of 2010, Romney stated the following: "Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way."
To be fair, Romney campaign spokeswoman - Amanda Henneberg - spoke out against this apparent flip-flop by the Republican candidate, as pointed out by the Democratic National Committee, by saying:
"Governor Romney made a statement of fact that Americans without health insurance are still able to receive critical care including in some cases through emergency rooms. It is an absurd misreading of his comments to imply that he offered emergency rooms as a 'solution' to our nation's health care challenges.
As president, Mitt Romney will repeal Obamacare and replace it with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that strengthen our health care system making sure that every American, regardless of their health care needs, can find quality, affordable coverage."
Now, to be fair to Ms. Henneberg, Scott Pelley did ask Romney the question, "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
Romney could have gone a number of different directions with that question (as he so often does). He could have just responded in the affirmative and danced around any specifics (as he so often does). He could have responded in the affirmative, but then harped against Obamacare (as he so often does). When he responded with talking about emergency rooms and wording it in a manner that could be taken by some as being sarcastic, he had to know in hindsight, that his response would likely get him into some trouble. While Ms. Henneberg may be partially accurate that the Republican nominee didn't lay claim that emergency rooms were THE solution to our healthcare problem in this country and while I may not give Romney a complete flip-flop, since he didn't fully answer Mr. Pelley's question, I would likely grade him with half of one until he's able to specify further, and that brings us to another problem with his response and his spokeswoman's attempted clarification. If Romney's saying our emergency rooms are the answer to our healthcare dilemma, then he didn't answer the question. If his spokeswoman is at all accurate with what she claimed the former Massachusetts Governor would do to improve our healthcare situation, neither he nor she provided any specifics.
The only "specifics," if we really want to call them that, that the Romney campaign has laid out with regard to healthcare in this country, it's that:
1) Romneycare was great for Massachusetts
2) We must repeal the national twin brother of Romneycare - Obamacare
3) We do like parts of Obamacare, like where kids are able to stay on their parents' insurance until the age of 26 and where people with pre-existing conditions can't be denied coverage
4) We will still repeal all of Obamacare, though
5) Yet we will still keep those two parts of Obamacare while fully repealing it
6) It's an honor to be called the Godfather of Obamacare due to Romneycare and providing the blueprint for Obamacare
7) But still, we will definitely repeal all of Obamacare
8) Without Obamacare, we can provide the nation's uninsured via the emergency rooms. Yes, this will be far more costly to tax-payers and leave many void of taking financial responsibility for themselves by being mandated insurance coverage, but still...
9) That emergency room bit wasn't the solution to the problem, but is just one of many possible solutions
10) To elaborate a bit on that - we have the solution. We're not going to tell you what that is, but trust me, we have it and it's not Obamacare, even though we like a couple portions of it and will keep the, while repealing everything in the bill
Yeah, as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, so eloquently stated recently, "(Republican Party leaders) have specifics coming out of our eyeballs..."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/democrats-pounce-on-romney-over-uninsured-er-care/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/reince-priebus-romney-specifics_n_1907150.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012
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