Day199 Wednesday 03/16/11

ran 3.6 miles

Mitt Romney recently defended his efforts at health care reform during a speech in New Hampshire. He said his reform plan for Massachusetts, which included a mandate that required people to buy insurance, was a modest success. “Some things worked, some things didn’t, and some things I’d change,” he said. He also vowed to repeal President Obama’s health care bill if he ever got the chance.

Mitt Romney’s is a unique case as far as 2012 presidential candidates go. In one breath he vows to repeal ObamaCare but in the other he discusses the pros and cons of his own state’s health care system he had implemented, which is largely similar to Obama’s plan. In his defense, something similar to ObamaCare may be conducive to the individual needs of his state. But it is not hypocritical for him to criticize Obama’s health care plan for the single reason that Obama is attempting to put a blanket law over fifty states, which all have different circumstances. There is no universal health care template for all of our fifty states and it is absurd to assume there is. Each state should have its own ability to design a system that fits its own needs.

Barack Obama only recently conceded to this fact by suggesting that states could possibly create their own health care plans around the federal government’s requirements. This notion of “one size fits all” for something as big as health care is a mistake. And the proof of that mistake resonates in Barack Obama’s concession for individual states to design their own programs.

Presidents don’t admit fault and they do not apologize for decisions they make. For President Obama to come forward and make a concession, might I add a big one, about his legacy legislation, his health care bill---he had no desire to say those words. But, when judges are ruling his bill unconstitutional, when more than half the states in America are racing to form a health care compact to avoid ObamaCare, when more than fifty percent of Americans don’t want this reform, and when high temperatures like these reach their boiling points, the least a president can do is offer a concession on his decision. That’s all he gave, but the fact that he offered it was a symbolic acknowledgment of the widespread disappointment people have in his health care bill.

“The federal government isn’t the answer for running health care any more than it’s the answer for running Amtrak or the post office.”

Mitt Romney

1,513.0 miles to go.