EriktheRed
Eh...
Twice in the last 24 hours, Romney press secretary Andrea Saul noted that Joe Soptic, a man featured in a Democratic attack ad suggesting his wifes cancer went undiagnosed because he lost his insurance, would have been able to purchase coverage under Romneys Massachusetts law.
To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Gov. Romneys health care plan, they would have had health care, Saul said Tuesday. On Wednesday, she repeated the point: If people had been in Massachusetts under Gov. Romneys health care plan they wouldve had health care. There a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President Obamas economy, and that is why Gov. Romney is running: to get people back to work.
Romney Highlights MA Health Care Reforms He’s Sworn Never To Implement | TPM2012
The background here is a new Priorities USA ad, which tells the story of a man, Joe Soptic, who lost his job and thus his health insurance after Bain bought out his plant. Years later his wife died what may have been a preventable death of cancer.
His particular story doesnt perfectly illustrate the problems with the countrys safety net. But far from suggesting Romney killed anybody (as his outraged supporters claim) it neatly exposes an enduring source of middle class uncertainty. If you get very sick almost anywhere in America, and then your employer goes out of business, or lays you off, youre already running out of options. Romneycare fixed this problem in Massachusetts. Obamacare is designed to fix it for the rest of the country.
Enter the Romney campaign, which notes quite correctly that Romneys mandated, subsidized health care system might have saved Soptics wife if shed lived in Massachusetts. But if thats such a good thing, then unless President Romneys going to recommend that all sick and laid off people move to New England, his pledge to repeal Obamacare just falls apart.
Romneycare For Me But Not For Thee | TPM Editors Blog