ETCHED IN STONE:
ROMNEYCARE = OBAMACARE
The Campaign Within a Campaign Begins Today
Verona, PA – We are on the eve of a dark milestone in our nation’s history.
Two years ago this week, President Barack Obama signed into law ObamaCare, the bill that changed the very core of this country.
Two years ago this week, Barack Obama cemented our dependence on government for our health and our very lives.
Two years ago this week, Barack Obama took Mitt Romney’s advice – and said the government, for the first time in history, could force you to buy something.
No matter how badly Governor Romney hopes he can hit the “reset button” or shake the “Etch-A-Sketch” to clear out the issues he’s proclaimed during his campaign, history shows Mitt Romney urged President Obama to use the individual mandate Romney himself implemented – and then was untruthful about it.
Unless we elect a nominee who can credibly stand up to the President and say “no” to ObamaCare, then more and more of our freedoms will be taken away forever.
Starting today – through the oral arguments before the Supreme Court – Rick Santorum and his campaign will expose the dangerous actions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s role in laying the foundation for this infringement on individual freedom.
Rick Santorum said,”RomneyCare is the fundamental difference between Mitt Romney’s campaign and mine. I stand for an individuals’ right to make their own decisions about healthcare – Gov. Romney and Barack Obama support the government controlling your healthcare. This election is about our basic freedoms being stripped away. I have the credibility and the record to stand up to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the healthcare issue and say, ‘no.’”
I have a fundamental disagreement with Barack Obama and Gov. Romney’s philosophy on the proper role of government. Barack Obama on the federal level and Gov. Romney on the state level used their executive authority to expand the government’s role in the lives of Americans. Unlike these two men, I believe government should be limited in its size and scope.”
When you run down the list of elements of RomneyCare and ObamaCare, you will see the same characteristics:
- Individual Mandate
- Employer Mandate
- Mandatory electronic records
- Comparative effectiveness
- End of life programs
- Medical homes
While conservatives have been campaigning against ObamaCare, Mitt Romney has attempted to hit the “reset” button and “shake” the past that he created the framework for ObamaCare. How can we believe that a candidate whose own campaign admits they plan to hit the “reset” button like shaking an “Etch-A-Sketch” will repeal the very law that is modeled after his own?
Freedoms do not change. Our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence were not written in shifting sands, they were signed by the ink of patriots who pledged their lives for liberty. AndConservatives who embrace a return to those founding principles are…of Romney’s plan because it does not reflect the idea of limited government they want to restore.
“It’s not simply that Governor Romney and I disagree on government control of healthcare, we clearly don’t share a philosophy about the proper role of government,” Santorum said. “I am running for President because, at my core, I believe in the greatness of America, the power of free people, and need to restore the principles our Founders risked it all for. America does not need, and cannot afford, a President whose core principles can be shaken away – and I have and always will etch my values, my principles, and core beliefs in stone. Sadly Governor Romney does not share this commitment.”
Conservative commentator MIchelle Malkin wrote, “I repeat: RomneyCare and ObamaCare share not only the same ideological architects, but similar waiver programs in part set up to benefit Big Labor.” (http://michellemalkin.com/2012/01/26/confirmed-romneycare-obamacare/)
Experts at the Cato Institute dispute claimsthat it’s “completely intellectually dishonest” to compare RomneyCare to ObamaCare. They have cited White House records showing “senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in2006…One of those meetings, on July 20, 2009, was in the Oval Office and presided over by President Barack Obama, the records show.
“The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,” said Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney administration on health care and who attended five meetings at the Obama White House in 2009, including the meeting with the president. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model”… (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/romneycare-making-a-fool-of-every-re…)
“Governor Romney can run but he can’t hide from the fact that without him, we would not have Obamacare as we know it,” Santorum said. “Americans don’t want government control of their healthcare, that’s why my views of a constitutionally limited government better mirror the values of conservatives and the vision of America.”
Additional information:
“Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney may not have intended that the mandatory health insurance law he signed in 2006 would look like the Obama health law. But the Massachusetts law does a lot more than cover the uninsured (a worthy goal).” (http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/romneycare-obamacare-healthcare-…)
“Notice that he didn’t answer Mr. Santorum’s critique. Instead, he shifted back to his talking points, stressing Mr. Obama’s Medicare cuts, the role of federalism, and his own compassion. In other words, he all but conceded Mr. Santorum’s point that the two plans are so similar voters will be hard-pressed to tell the difference come November.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204661604577187040872…)
“Mitt Romney has gone to great lengths to distance his Massachusetts health plan from the federal law, even giving a PowerPoint presentation to emphasize the differences. But the truth is that there are an awful lot of similarities between the plan he signed in Massachusetts in 2006, often called “RomneyCare,” and the one that President Barack Obama signed in 2010, dubbed “ObamaCare.” (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/mar/20/romneyc…) (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/04/paul…) (http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/dec/05/howard-dean/…)
