In possibly his most disturbing interview to date, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tells Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured.
While discussing reducing the federal debt, Romney explains that his first step will be to repeal Obamacare, and repeating his often claimed lie that this will knock $100 billion annually off the budget. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has found that repealing the health care law will increase the federal budget deficit by more than $100 billion in the first decade and more than a trillion dollars in the next decade. The CBO also found that 30 million Americans would remain uninsured without the Affordable Care Act.
Pelley then asks Romney "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
With absolutely no hint of emotion, or human compassion whatsoever, Romney tells Scott Pelley, "Well we do provide care for people who don't have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care.
And different states have different ways of providing for that care."
I don't think Romney even blinks as he finishes this portion of this extended interview:
Pelley: That's the most expensive way to do it.
Romney: Well the--
Pelley: In an emergency room.
Romney: Different, again, different states have different ways of doing that. Some provide that care through clinics. Some provide the care through emergency rooms. In my state, we found a solution that worked for my state. But I wouldn't take what we did in Massachusetts and say to Texas, "You've got to take the Massachusetts model."
Some states might have clinics? So if you're having a heart attack after business hours you do sit in your apartment and die? Why such a drastic change in Romney's position on health care?
When asked in a March 2010 interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether he believes in universal health care coverage, Romney said, "Oh, sure!"
"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way," he said. See the video below:
[oldembed src="https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" width="425" height="300" FlashVars="launch=35685559" fid="2"]
During an interview with Glenn Beck in 2007 (See the video below), Romney said that the individual mandate, the centerpiece of ObamaCare upheld by the Supreme Court today as a tax, was the “ultimative conservatism.” Romney said people going to the hospital and “getting free care” was a “form of socialism.”
See what a gigantic flip-flop this is? Now Romney is endorsing socialism? But Romney's version of socialism is unacceptable, as it leaves millions with no health care at all unless it's an emergency, and even then most hospitals have varying degrees of how much care you'll receive. But the 47% of the U.S. who are just moochers should just shut up and be glad with whatever get, isn't that right Mr. Romney?
