Even 'Money Loving' Romney is down with ObamaCare. Ha!
The Republican presidential nominee has been unable to join in his party's sharp new line of criticism on Mr Obama's law, which mandates all Americans to buy health insurance and was redefined as a tax by the Court last week, because he himself pioneered the policy.
[Telegraph]Mr Obama is accused of breaking a 2008 pledge to not raise taxes on households earning less than $250,000 (£159,000). "This is a middle-class tax increase," said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.However, Mr Romney finds himself unable to similarly criticise Mr Obama because he himself introduced a health care "mandate" as governor of Massachusetts in 2006, yet denies raising taxes.Asked repeatedly if Mr Romney agreed with Mr Obama and his Democratic party that the fine for Americans who do not buy insurance was a penalty rather than a tax, Mr Romney's spokesman told MSNBC: "That's correct."It highlighted a weakness in Mr Romney's candidacy on a campaign issue that has enraged grassroots conservatives, who maintain that the federal government has no right to force them to buy goods and services such as insurance.Mark McKinnon, a former strategist to President George W Bush, said the Romney camp were suffering from "message mayhem" on the topic.
Hogan Gidley, a former aide to Rick Santorum – the Right-wing former senator beaten to the presidential nomination by Mr Romney – said in an interview: "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it's a problem for the Republicans."
Some 26 Republican-controlled states sued the government over the so-called "ObamaCare" reforms, but were ultimately defeated in the Supreme Court's ruling last week. Since claiming victory, the President's re-election team has begun using the term "ObamaCare" – previously favoured only by his critics – in campaign material.
Yet the law is still consistently found to be unpopular in opinion polls. A new ABC News/Washington Post survey found yesterday that 47 per cent of Americans viewed the law negatively, compared to 45 per cent who favoured it.
However Mr Romney's own vague plans for health care – starting with "repealing and replacing ObamaCare" on day one of his presidency – were viewed favourably by just 30 per cent of people, and negatively by 47 per cent.
Mr Romney's stance on the subject has been undermined by "Romneycare", the Massachusetts system that was copied in the creation of Mr Obama's reform.
While Mr Romney now claims that he never believed it should be used across the US, in fact he said in a 2007 speech that it was "a model for the nation".
Mr Santorum has long maintained that Mr Romney would turn out to be the "worst candidate" possible to take on Mr Obama over health care. Despite since endorsing Mr Romney, he recently criticised the record of the mandate system in Massachusetts, which now has some of the most expensive insurance in the country.
"They have a series of problems with people who decide to take the tax, in other words, pay the fine, instead of buying insurance, because it's cheaper," Mr Santorum told an interview. "It doesn't work."
