Mitt Romney Talks Health Care on CNN (8/20/2009)

[jaddison1112]

Brian8793: I might want to move to Massachusetts, just to get healthcare, as it is bankrupting me now ..... And Brian, I think Romney might be OK if he stops pandering to the Republican Right Wing. Why doesn't he just speak his truth and stop all the screaming about how bad Obama is. Give us an idea of what he truly believes. Why does did he raise his hand with all the other Republicans who would even accept a 10 to 1 Cuts vs Revenues to balance the budget. There has to be balance and fairness!

[pCriistopher]

youtube.com/watch?v=PURfrORhWP­c

[brian8793]

Come on Democrats, lets give this guy a chance in 2012!

[deere3321]

Well, good for you.

[deere3321]

I think Romney is the only chance for the republicans to redeem themselves. He is well respected by both sides of the isle. You have to be good to get elected governor of Mass. when you are a conservative

[phillip84109]

Romney is great. Health care is one of the few industries in the country where the free market alone isn't enough. That's because we treat people whether or not they can afford it. This makes supply and demand curves less relevant.

I'm still not sure if mandated health insurance is the key, but we definitely need to make people accountable for paying their own health care costs.

[cartmanfan0316]

"...but we definitely need to make people accountable for paying their won health care costs."

Have you ever heard the term "the tragedy of the commons?" I bet not. The problem with health care is that there are too many fixed prices in the industry & too much government & not enough free market capitalism in the system.

Romney is a R.I.N.O. And also, where in the bill of rights does it say health care is a right? You want folks to pay for their own HC, then start savings medical accounts.

[phillip84109]

@cartmanfan0316 Romney is not a RINO. I believe in health savings accounts myself but he makes a conservative argument for requiring insurance. Just because you disagree with him on that one issue does not make him a RINO. And it's not socialized health care. Socialized health care would be a public option, which Romney has always opposed.

If you actually look at his record, you will find that Romney is very conservative on most issues. Please do your homework on this guy.

[callusername]

I love Mitt, He is a strong leader, a true conservative, and would pull us out of this slow economy!

[scerplaya]

@callusername What do you think now two years later?

[callusername]

@scerplaya its a loaded question, but I would still say Mitt is the most electable, I believe he's the only one that could really beat Obama, and DEFINITELY understands the economy better than most. As far as the GOP ticket is concerned, I would support anyone they nominate over this administration

[attie3]

Newt Gingrich and mitt romney 2010

[rettek808]

Man do we need him!! he has the best credibility for our governments most major problems.

[sj1778]

Romney is the best hope for 2012 .

[speakerman1818]

Smart man

[aaasssfffdddiii]

It just proves that universal coverage can be achieved without the obama/european style socialized medicine.

[xaviqaz]

Romney´s plan is similar to swiss and dutch healthcare. Single payer is not the only model in Europe. In fact more and more governments are introducing vouchers, co-payment, private management of hospitals, etc. Swiss government (federal and local) only pays 24% of the costs, while american government pays almost 50%. And 99.5% of swiss people has medical coverage.

[cartmanfan0316]

Universal health can't work. Medicaid & medicare is broken. Why in the hell would you want anything larger than that? Also, health care is not a right. If you believe health care is a right, then along with that belief, you have to believe that you have a right to other peoples' money and a right to other peoples' labor. And if you still believe that, then go and joing the Communist Party USA.

[phillip84109]

Romney is very conservative. He's always promoted business friendly, pro-growth, low tax, polices. He brought down taxes as governor.

He actually cut the size of government in Massachusetts. He cut government jobs; the actual number of government employees decreased while he was governor. He cut waste in government.

Romney is a man who has cut government and balanced budgets. You might not agree with him on every issue, but, if you want smaller government, Romney is your man.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 you are obviously a romney fan. how interesting that the repubs' overreaction to healthcare will probably eliminate his chance to be nominated. the party is now staking its argument on the idea that an individual mandate violates the constitution. then they're going to turn around and nominate romney? as a dem, i applaud them driving a rare electable repub out of the race.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Republicans understand the Constitution. The 10th amendment states that if it's not in the Constitution, then the power rests with the states.

Romney has said that he believes that insuring people should be left to the states, not the federal government. That should end it. If not, well, Republicans nominated McCain even thought they disagreed with him on immigration and campaign finance reform (among others).

Romney's record is solid in other areas, and I think he'll be fine.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 that sounds like spin. immigration and campaign finance were secondary issues. repubs have made this the biggest fight in generations and they have made the centerpiece of the fight the unconstituionality of mandates (even though it was a repub idea). arguing that state mandates are different than federal mandates won't cut it. romney's legs have been cut off.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead We'll see in a couple of years.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 you guys love citing the 10th amendment. the track record on striking down legislation with that is essentially non-existent.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Congress often uses the commerce clause to get around the 10th amendment but this time they are requiring people who are engaged in non-commerce to by a product. That's never been done before at the federal level. In a way, all those AGs will be making Romney's case for him.

As far as Romney's chances in 2012 go, who would beat him?

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 ah, that's the repubs problem. he was the only one not tied to the kooky right. i don't know. i actually thought utah's huntsman was your guys' best bet and obama very smartly took him off the table. and i do think this mandate is a fatal problem for romney. they won't be able to make the case that it's an assualt on the constiution for congress to make you buy something but it's OK for a state. that just won't get off the ground.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 worse for you guys, if romney is crippled by this, it MAY tempt palin enough to jump in. i don't think she can get the nomination but just being in the race will do serious damage. her people are true believers and many will walk away when she inevitably crashes and burns.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead I think the Republicans will be just fine in 2012 as long as they stick to fiscal responsibility when they take back Congress.

I think Romney will be just fine too.

What do you have against conservatives anyway? We believe in limited government and low taxes. What's your problem with that?

I know Romney's not as conservative as I'd like, but from a practical standpoint, he's the most qualified from either party to actually balance the budget.

He's the most competent.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 I still don't see how the repubs can elevate the individual mandate to an assault on everything that is american and then turn around a nominate a guy who signed it into law and, it turns out, endorsed it on the federal level during the repub debates in 08. i realize there is hypocrisy in politics, but that is beyond the pale.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Well, Obama was against individual mandates during the 2008 campaign. Now he's for them. Is that also hypocrisy "beyond the pale"? People have a right to change their minds.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 i'm sure you can see the difference if you try. obama never argued the mandates were unconstitutional and a dagger to the heart of democracy and all this other overheated blather from the right. he just argued that he didn't think it was good policy. yes, you can change your mind. but i just don't see how the repubs can go that way with the extreme rhetoric they're spewing.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead First of all, let me say that it's refreshing to have a discussion with a liberal who actually focuses on the issues rather than hurl insults and recycled talking points.

Secondly, I think you're wrong about Romney and federal mandates. I've looked pretty thoroughly and haven't found any truth to that.

He has said he believes Mass health care should be a model for other states to follow, but even during 2008, he never supported a federal mandate.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 i sort of thought that too. but there is no a video of him in the repub debate. the moderator says to romney: "you favored a mandate, although i believe you have backed off a federal madate," to which romney replies, "oh no, no, i like mandates." this comes directly after a reference to FEDERAL mandates.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Is that the best evidence you have? A video put out by the DNC?

I watched all the primary debates and Romney consistently made it clear that he supported individual states coming up with their own plan. I remember him specifically talking about the plan in Cali in and interview after a debate and he said Cali had the right to do their own plan.

Look at everything Romney has ever said about mandates. It's clear he has only supported mandates at the state level.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 you are tenacious, but i'm afraid misguided. the video is what it is, whoever put it out. and the dnc isn't romney's problem. it's the people who will decide the repub nominating process, the tea partiers. that clip is fatal. fatal. and even if i bought the distinction between state and federal mandates (which i don't), there is no way in hades the up-in-arms right will.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Speaking of hypocrisy, don't forget Obama blaming the financial crisis of '08 on Bush & the Republicans when he voted to block mortgage reform back in '05.

Democrats controlled congress for 2 years prior to the meltdown but did nothing to reform the mortgage problem because they felt "everyone deserves a house."

Now they're bailing out homeowners again. Keeping them in houses they can't afford.

When that bubble bursts (again), they'll probably do what they do best: blame Bush.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 mortgage reform is a tiny speck of the problem compared to the lack of regulation that allowed banks to get involved in all of the gambling and game-playing. you would have done much better arguing clinton's role in that or that obama hasn't really cleaned it up. i would have agreed with both of those points.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead I think you're dead wrong about mortgages. Mortgages were at the heart of the problem and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held over 1/2 the mortgages in the country.

Remember, the defaults of mortgage backed securities caused the financial meltdown.

The Democrats like to pretend the crisis was the fault of Republicans; but the Democrats were clearly the main proponents of the policies that lead to the crisis. It is very hypocritical for the Democrats to hang this on the Republicans.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 we will never come within a million miles of agreeing on that point. bad mortgages were a sliver of the problem. the real problem was allowing banks to get in the gambling business, with all that credit default swap nonsense. clinton played along with it, but it was pushed by repubs. if you want an elected official villain, it was phil gramm.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead It's pretty clear that the collapse of mortgage backed securities lead to everything else.

The credit default swaps were not the problem per se. They were backed by mortgages because they were considered safer financial instruments.

Problem is, people didn't realize how unstable the mortgage market was. This was because bad mortgages were mixed with the good ones to spread the risk around. This helped keep the ratings for the credit default swaps artificially high.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead More on the Democrats responsibility for the financial crisis:

The ratings for the credit default swaps were artificially high because investors didn't do due diligence to realize that the banks were approving people for loans who had no business being in them (yes, the investors and the bankers are also responsible).

The main reason for this was the banks were being pressured by Democrats in congress to put poor people in houses because it was good for them politically.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 i can say upfront this thread is a dead-end. i respect your motivations but you literally could not possibly be more incorrect and neither of us is apparently going to budge a milimeter. i don't buy any tiny aspect of your argument. you portray the banks as victims of the dems' do-gooder pressure. absolute, unadulerated nonsense from start to finish.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 the banks found a way to make money on those bad loans. they turned into a vegas gambling game and it worked -- for awhile. the elimination of glass-steagall was where it went south, and clinton shares a good deal of that blame. but the repubs were bigger players.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead I'm okay with someone disagreeing with me. But I don't like it when someone doesn't give a reason.

You can't just say it's non-sense. What did I say that was inaccurate?

By the way, I agree with most of what you are saying. I also blame the banks, the investors, and the Republicans.

I'm just trying to get you to see that bad mortgages were (and still are) the main problem with the financial crisis, not just a sliver of the problem. They were failed insurance against all these risks

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 bad mortgages as a whole may have been more than a sliver, but fannie-freddie's role has been overblown and mischaracterized. first, their involvement in subprimes was not that large. second, it was based as much or more on market competition as on political pressure. investors wanted them to be aggressive because the banks/gambling houses were stealing their business. partners were threatening to dump them if they didn't.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 the biggest problem was allowing banks to behave like investment companies that are essentially built on gambling. these banks wouldn't have gone after the risky loans if they didn't think they would pay off in one way or another.

again, this is a fairly pointless exchange. neither of us is going to budge half an ant's footstep.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead I'm willing to budge if you give me evidence.

I agree that the banks took too many risks. But the influence of Fannie and Freddie were not overblown. They had over 1/2 of the mortgages and that meant that the rest of the industry had to follow their lead.

It's true that most of their loans were not subprime, but that's because most mortgages were not either. Problem was, it was bigger than it should have been and that was because of political policies and the accompanying pressure.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 according to fed reserve, in 2006, more than 80 percent of subprimes came from completely private institutions. between 2004-2006, fannie-freddie's share of subprimes sold into secondary market dropped from 48 to 24. to the extent that they were still in this biz, it was to keep up with private banks, not the other way around.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead You're proving part of my point for me. I said that part of the problem was that bad mortgages were sold and mixed with good ones to help spread the risk of the credit default swaps that were backed by mortgages.

Ultimately, it's the fault of Americans (both homeowners and Wall Streeters) who lived beyond their means and thought they could get away with it.

I do believe though, that is was liberal policies (pushed both by Republicans and Democrats) that facilitated this problem.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead Look at why the banks were willing to take such big risks. It's pretty obvious if you look at the bailouts.

Follow the money. Obama was #2 on the list of recipients of money from Fannie and Freddie.

Obama was also #2 on the list from AIG (Chris Dodd was #1)

His Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, allowed the bonuses of AIG when he authored their bailout while CEO of the NY Fed.

In fact, even now, they still have their bonuses.

Obama talks a good game, but he doesn't deliver.

[tishhead]

@phillip84109 if you are trying to convince me that obama has not been strong enough on this, you don't have to. on other hand, the repubs stand on this reeks of hypocrisy. look at the transcripts of the 2004 convention when one of their top selling points was the "record levels of home ownership" that were "due to OUR policies."

[phillip84109]

@tishhead I agree some Republicans were hypocritical on this, but most were not. It was primarily Bush, a few Republicans, and most Democrats.

Don't forget, Republicans tried to reform the system back in 2005 but it was the Democrats who blocked it.

As far as Obama goes, it's not that he wasn't strong enough in being a solution, it's that he was part of the problem.

As far as Wall Street goes, It's fair to say that both Republicans and Democrats were too passive in policing the system.

[phillip84109]

@tishhead By the way, just because the the Democrats are being hypocritical by blaming Republicans for a problem they created doesn't mean the Republicans aren't also to blame as well.

They stood by and let it happen when they were in the majority. And, in the case of Bush and a few others, also supported it.

But when they tried to reform it, the Democrats stood in their way and called them racist.

I do blame Clinton, but I don't focus on him because he can't get re-elected. Obama can.

[chattingcat]

Great man:)