who blogs at Dirigo Blue and Kennebec Blues
The GOP presidential candidates have been narrowed down to a few extreme voices challenging the extreme pandering, "I'm severely conservative" weak front runner, Mitt Romney. While the winnowing has seen some debating points leaving the stage, the use of the pejorative “Romneycare” seems to be taking center stage more and more.
The unfortunate use of the shorthand term “Romneycare” ought to cease. The correct name for the legislation passed by the Massachusetts General Court is “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care.” The effort to personalize it with a single person’s name ignores the input of many legislators, the role of interests groups in its formation, the debate in the state at large among the citizenry, and the application of the benefits and shortcomings of the act itself.
Indeed the shortcut to creating a pejorative for the Massachusetts Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care legislation is a seemingly successful attempt to demonize it voters’ minds as a whole rather than to debate its vital finer points, discuss core governing and political philosophies rationally on the matter, and most unfortunate of all, avoid being engaged on the issues of health care crisis solutions and providing accesses to good health care for all citizens.
Newt and Rick should stop using the term Romneycare if they want voters to take them seriously on health care issues. Now about Mitt using the term Obamacare…