Advertisement

Mitt Romney's Health Care Dilemma

18:00
Download Audio
Resume
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney meets with entrepreneurs at Bizdom U in Detroit, Thursday. (AP)
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney meets with entrepreneurs at Bizdom U in Detroit, Thursday. (AP)

The Republican presidential candidates will hold their first major debate in New Hampshire Monday, home to the first in the nation primary. One of the expected flash-points: former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive front-runner, will probably take some hard hits from his opponents for signing Massachusetts' universal health care law as governor.

Particularly, many will focus on the part about the individual mandate, which many conservatives hate. But the thing is, the mandate was originally an idea that came from conservative Republicans. So were other components of the Massachusetts health care law, which became the model for the federal Affordable Health Care act, signed into law by President Obama.

So what changed? What explains why so many conservatives now shun "RomneyCare," which is arguably a moderate, market-based plan that didn't raise taxes and insisted on a big dose of personal responsibility.

Journalist Ryan Lizza wrote about Romney's careful tightrope walk in the New Yorker. His piece is called "Romney'a Dilemma: How His Greatest Achievement Has Become His Biggest Liability."

Guests:

This segment aired on June 10, 2011.

Advertisement

More from Radio Boston

Listen Live
Close