Romney's long path of flip-flops.
One of the best things the Democrats can do is go back and dig up some of Mitten's old quotes about health care. It makes him out to be a complete idiot in light of what he's saying now.
In 2009 to CNN:
"I think there are a number of features in the Massachusetts plan that could inform Washington on ways to improve health care for all Americans. The fact that we were able to get people insured without a government option is a model I think they can learn from."
During the 2008 Republican debate,
from an ABC transcript:
GIBSON: But Government Romney's system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.
ROMNEY: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.
THOMPSON: I beg your pardon? I didn't know you were going to admit that. You like mandates.
ROMNEY: Let me -- let me -- oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren't...
THOMPSON: The ones you come up with.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMNEY: Here's my view: If somebody -- if somebody can afford insurance and decides not to buy it, and then they get sick, they ought to pay their own way, as opposed to expect the government to pay their way.
More from the ABC transcript:
ROMNEY: A lot of people have ideas about health care and improving health care. We took the ideas and actually made them work in our state, as people in New Hampshire know. We put in place a plan that gets every citizen in our state health insurance, and it didn't cost us new money. And it didn't require us to raise taxes.
What we found was, it was less expensive or no more expensive to help individuals who had been uninsured by their own private policy than it had been for us to give out free care at the hospital.
And since we put our plan in place last April, we've now had 300,000 people who were uninsured sign up for this insurance, private insurance.
And in his book with the ironic title of "No Apology", quoted by
National Review Online:
My own preference would be to let each state fashion its own program to meet the distinct needs of its citizens. States could follow the Massachusetts model of they choose, or they could develop plans of their own. These plans, tested in the state ‘laboratories of democracy’ could be evaluated, compared, improved upon, and adopted by others. But the creation of a national plan is the direction in which Washington is currently moving. If a national approach is ultimately adopted, we should permit individuals to purchase insurance from companies in other states in order to expand choice and competition.