Former Massachusetts governor and soon-to-be perennial – no, quadrennial – presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been getting pummeled for his role in passing the 2006 health care reform initiative in the Bay State.
The latest whack appeared on Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page, courtesy of Grace-Marie Turner, “president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization focusing on patient-centered health reform.”
Nut graf:
Mr. Romney claimed earlier this month on “Fox News Sunday” that the Massachusetts health reform plan he signed into law in 2006 is “the ultimate conservative plan.” But there are many similarities between it and the ObamaCare loathed by conservative voters.
At this rate, before too long RomneyCare will be loathed by conservative voters just as much.
H-e-double-hockeysticks.
Campaign Outsider 
Poor Willard. He’s gonna get treated the worst from every side over the Mass healthcare law.
First, remember that Romney had very little role in crafting the bill itself; that was accomplished over months of regular, direct discussions between the senate president and the speaker of the house. Nobody else was involved — not even other members of the General Court (see Jonas column in the Globe 3/12/06). When they finally broke the logjam, Romney wasn’t anywhere in sight, and didn’t even know what was in the legislators’ compromise bill:
“Romney, who flew to Utah yesterday, said in a statement that he was ”pleased the impasse had been broken” but said he would withhold comment until he saw the details. ‘I look forward to reviewing the bill as it moves along,’ he said in a statement.” [Globe 3/4/06]
Second, it didn’t matter what Romney thought about the bill, anyway:
“But legislative insiders said Romney’s threat of a veto [over a $295 fee] is irrelevant because they predicted the heavily Democratic Legislature would easily override it.”
Sure enough: the legislature passed the fee, Romney vetoed it, and they overrode his veto. Whatever significant input Romney tried to make to the bill didn’t make the final cut.
Romney made a big hubbub of signing the bill — in Faneuil Hall — even though he was actually vetoing parts of it. A photo op that may live to haunt him in Republican presidential primaries.
Thirdly, he went around the country claiming the Travaglini-DiMasi bill as his own. Now that he’s done so, and the Republican party has decided that universal healthcare reform is Satan or Marx in government clothing, he can’t reinvent himself and claim it wasn’t his bill. It’s now an albatross around his neck. They’re even calling it RomneyCare!
Just wait for his opponents to ask:
Q. How did Massachusetts pay for RomneyCare so that it wouldn’t run deficits?
And watch him squirm by saying:
A. A $295 tax on businesses for every uninsured person. Oh, and I vetoed that provision but they overrode my veto. So, if I had gotten my way, it would have increased the deficit even more!
He’s gonna get pummeled by his own party over a bill that he didn’t write or negotiate but that he decided later to take credit for.
Poor Willard.