RUSH: Mitt Romney, April of 2010, he\u2019s been asked to compare Romneycare to Obamacare.<\/p>\n
ROMNEY: There are some similarities and there are some differences. I like some of the similarities, I dislike most of the differences between my plan and their plan. The similarities are that we have an incentive for people to become insured, and the incentive works, we have 98% of our citizens in Massachusetts that are insured. So that\u2019s working. Another similarity is you can\u2019t be denied coverage, insurance coverage if you have a preexisting condition or if you change jobs you don\u2019t need to worry about losing your insurance. So our insurance is entirely portable. Those are perhaps the most important or well known similarities. The differences, one is, our plan was a state plan. I believe in federalism. I believe the Tenth Amendment gives to the states the right to create their own health insurance programs rather than have the federal government intrude on the rights of states. That\u2019s number one. So some similarities, some differences, and I hope we\u2019re ultimately able to eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad and keep the good.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, this is from 2010. Did you catch something important here? See, Romney is twisting himself into a pretzel in the campaign because he\u2019s saying, (paraphrasing) “Obamacare, gotta go, it\u2019s horrible, and the first thing I\u2019m gonna do is repeal it.” And they said, “What\u2019s bad about it, because it looks just like yours?” “There\u2019s all kinds of differences, I don\u2019t need to get into \u2019em now but there\u2019s all kinds.” And we\u2019ve had Romney\u2019s people that put together his health plan say it\u2019s identical to Obamacare. In fact, Romneycare was the model for Obamacare; Romney\u2019s own people are saying so. So, as part of the Republican Party contest, people have been trying to point out, wait a minute, Romney has not been really forthcoming about this. <\/p>\n
So this bite has been discovered, and Snerdley caught it. The similarities in Obamacare and Romneycare, he named two that he likes, and one of them is the mandate. He says here the similarities are that we have an incentive for people to become insured. That\u2019s the mandate, and the incentive works. Ninety-eight percent of our citizens in Massachusetts are insured. So when he\u2019s asked about that today, for example, what does he say? Well, let\u2019s go back to September. He\u2019s in Orlando. This is Fox News Channel. It\u2019s a debate. Chris Wallace, “Governor Romney, the other day Governor Perry called Romneycare socialized medicine. He said it\u2019s failed in western Europe and in Massachusetts, and he warns that Republicans should not nominate, in his words, Obama-lite. How do you respond to Governor Perry?”<\/p>\n