Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) continues to struggle with questions about why he wants to repeal a health care law that is so similar to the health reforms he signed in 2006 as Governor of Massachusetts. As he travels the country promoting his new book, Romney has had to embrace his plan while at the same time attacking Obama's very similar proposal. This rather nuanced position has led the governor to adopt a series of contradictory positions. Recently, Romney argued that the individual mandate is unconstitutional (after saying in 2008, "I like mandates. The mandates work."), insisted that Massachusetts is not a model for federal health reform (after saying in 2009 that "Massachusetts is a model for getting everybody insured"), and called his plan "the ultimate pro-life effort" (even though it covers abortions).
Yesterday, Bill O'Reilly further challenged Romney on the success of RomneyCare, forcing the governor to defend his plan and admit that Massachusetts relied on federal dollars to expand health care coverage. "Actually, from the beginning the plan was a 50/50 deal between the federal government and the state government," Romney said in response to O'Reilly's claim that state spending on health care was out of control. "The feds fund half of it, they have from the very beginning," he repeated, while maintaining that Massachusetts solved "a problem at the state level."
rest at http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/13/romney-federal-funds/
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