For President Obama, likely one of the most painful consequences of the difficulties with the Obamacare rollout is that it has given his former rival, failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a chance to rise from the dead and attack the president for failed leadership and lying to the American public, which Romney did with glee yesterday on “Meet the Press.”
Almost precisely a year after Obama trounced Romney, the difficulties in the introduction of the Affordable Care Act gave the election loser an opportunity to stomp all over the president, his lack of leadership and his “fundamental dishonesty,” which Romney said has “put in peril the whole foundation of his second term.”
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Romney said Obama’s handling of Obamacare’s promises “has undermined the foundation of his second term – I think it is rotting it away.”
He added that what “has really undermined the president’s credibility in the hearts of the American people is that he went out, as a centerpiece of his campaign and as a centerpiece of Obamacare over the last several years, saying time and time again that fundamental to his plan was the right people would have to keep their insurance plan, and he knew that was not the case.”
“Had the president been truthful and told the American people that millions would lose their insurance and millions more would see their premiums skyrocket… there would have been such a hue and cry against it, (that) it would not have passed,” Romney said.
The latest furor over Obamacare is centered around the hundreds of thousands of people who buy insurance on the individual market who got letters saying their cut-rate plans were being canceled because they are deemed inadequate and substandard under the new rules of Obamacare.
Republicans say this means the president wasn’t being truthful when he continually told Americans they would be able to keep their current plans if they were happy with them. This has given Republicans an opportunity to call Obama a liar—to claim that if Americans want to keep their substandard, cut-rate plans, they should be able to.
“What do you say to Mark and Lucinda in my district, who had a plan, they liked it, it was affordable, but it is being terminated, and now they do not have health insurance?” Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn famously asked. “I will remind you, some people like to drive a Ford, not a Ferrari, and some people like to drink out of a red Solo Cup, not a crystal stem. You’re taking away their choice.”
Massachusetts’ current governor, Deval Patrick, a Democrat and close friend of Obama who succeeded Romney, dismissed Romney’s charge of Obama lying. Patrick said for people who are losing their current health insurance coverage, in many cases that coverage was flawed to begin with.
“If you have the kind of health care that disappears when you need it most, the Affordable Care Act says that has to end,” Patrick said.
This line of reasoning was further expounded on ABC’s “This Week” by Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer.
If Obama were to allow people “to have those plans be downgraded, or insurance companies to keep selling barebones plans… he’d be violating even more important promise to the American people, that everyone would have a guarantee to access of quality affordable health insurance,” he said.
Pfeiffer said the plans that are now being discontinued “were cut-rate plans that didn’t cover hospitalization, doctor’s visits” and therefore people will be better off being covered by more costly and more inclusive plans.
Pfeiffer said that under Obamacare, in the individual market for insurance, 50 percent of the uninsured “are going to be able to get access to tax subsidies to make their plans cheaper. And most of them will get a better plan for less for the same or less.”
“I think the only way [Obama] can rebuild credibility is to work with Republicans and Democrats and try to rebuild the foundation [of his second term],” Romney said on “Meet the Press.” “We’ve got to have a president who can lead and right now he’s not able to do so.”
