Romney: I'll Do Away With ObamaCare on Day One

He wants to leave it up to the states
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted May 12, 2011 9:44 AM CDT
Mitt Romney: I'll Do Away With ObamaCare on Day One
In an April 29, 2011 file photo Possible 2012 presidential hopeful, former Massacusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a dinner sponsored by Americans for Prosperity in Manchester, NH.   (AP Photo/Jim Cole/file)

If he’s elected president, Mitt Romney says the first thing he’d do is defang the new federal health care reform law. “The president definitely forgot the admonition to ‘do no harm,’” Romney writes in a USA Today op-ed. “If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare.”

As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney passed a universal health care system an awful lot like the one Democrats passed last year, something Democrats have delighted in pointing out. But now he says he’s against the federal government passing that sort of system—he wants to leave it up to the states. “Some states might pass a plan like the one we did,” he says, “while others will choose an altogether different route.” Putting responsibility in the hands of the states is Step 1. He also suggests four more steps:

  • "Reform the tax code to promote the individual ownership of health insurance."
  • "Focus federal regulation of health care on making markets work."
  • "Reform medical liability."
  • "Make health care more like a consumer market and less like a government program."
(More Mitt Romney stories.)

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