Santorum Campaign Press Release - Romney Busted Again

Verona, PA - After months of denying he advocated his failed individual healthcare mandate be applied by President Obama on the national level, a second op-ed authored by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney tells a very different story. In this piece written in 2009 for Newsweek, Romney argues that the individual mandate and its corresponding tax penalties be used as "the basic plan" for President Obama to follow.

Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "It's one thing to pass a healthcare mandate in your state, it's another to beg the President to copy your idea, but it's quite another to not be truthful about it. We need to trust the Republican nominee will restore freedom not continue to take them away. It's obviously clear we cannot trust Mitt Romney's promises for the future when he cannot be truthful about his performance in the past."

The answer is unleashing markets--not government.

By Mitt Romney; Newsweek.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/05/01/the-answer-is-unleashing-markets-not-government.html

... Get everyone insured. Help low-income households retain or purchase private insurance with a tax credit, voucher or coinsurance. Use the tens of billions we now give hospitals for free care to instead help people buy and keep their own private insurance. For the uninsured who can afford insurance but expect to be given free care at the hospital, require them to either pay for their own care or buy insurance; if they do neither, they would forgo the tax credit or lose a deduction. No more "free riders."

This is the basic plan I proposed in Massachusetts. It has worked: 360,000 previously uninsured citizens now have private health insurance. The total number of uninsured has been reduced by almost 75 percent. The Massachusetts plan costs the state more than expected, largely because the legislature has been unwilling to further reduce state payments to hospitals for free care. The costs should be brought in line by eliminating these payments, by requiring sustainable co-premiums and by removing coverage mandates (for example, every policy is now required to include unlimited in vitro fertilization procedures)...