Don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no national healthcare

You may recall this fella Mitt Romney who ran for president in 2012 on a platform of getting rid of Obamacare. It was a terrible, terrible idea, he said, that stole people's freedom of choice, was sure to ruin medical care in America, and also probably made your car elevator get stuck halfway up. And NOBODY wants that.

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Sure, he boasted all through the primaries and the general election that it was a good conservative plan for Massachusetts, but a terrible liberal idea for the nation, since what worked in Massachusetts couldn't possibly work nationwide, especially if a Democrat passed it, don't you see?

Well, darned if Mitt didn't have a slight hiccup in his memory module Friday, when he said, in a Boston Globe obituary for Staples co-founder Thomas Stemberg that Stemberg had been the very guy who convinced him to reform health care, which eventually brought the benefits of Romneycare to all of us in the form of the Affordable Care Act.

Stemberg, he told the Globe, encouraged him to implement health reform when he served as governor, telling Romney that giving people access to health care would be a way of doing good. It was an idea, the Globe reported, "which Romney said he hadn't really considered before." “Without Tom pushing it, I don't think we would have had Romneycare," Romney told the Globe. “Without Romneycare, I don't think we would have Obamacare. So without Tom, a lot of people wouldn't have health insurance."

Which of course, Romney realized later Friday, is simply terrible!

Well, DUH

You see, what he meant was that "everyone having health insurance" is good, but that "everyone having insurance because Obamacare" is very, very BAD. As Romney explained on the Facebook:

Getting people health insurance is a good thing, and that's what Tom Stemberg fought for. I oppose Obamacare and believe it has failed. It drove up premiums, took insurance away from people who were promised otherwise, and usurped state programs. As I said in the campaign, I'd repeal it and replace it with state-crafted plans.

And the minor detail that Obamacare is pretty much a nationwide rollout of Romneycare is beside the point, because FREEDOM, and Mitt definitely didn't contradict himself at all, for Pete's sake! He's right, too: Obamacare is not as good as some of the alternatives, like single-payer/Medicare for all. It also doesn't cover abortion, unlike Romneycare, which does.

[contextly_sidebar id="J3ocniqeA9DqrK2KhvpHd9VVOGTdLjXm"]As everyone knows, people simply HATE the ACA and how it's kept costs down and saved hospitals money, while driving the number of uninsured Americans to historic lows.

[contextly_sidebar id="ByPdhJSebioC7Lf2zvTG4CP2CcbQgQeB"]Don't even get us STARTED on all the Obamacare horror stories. Really, don't try to get us started, because they're ridiculously difficult to find, and we don't want to search through all the stories of people who are pleased with their new insurance.

But fine, have it your way, Mitt. We won't thank you for the ACA. We're willing to give credit to the nice folks who actually came up with it, the Heritage Foundation Obama administration.

[WaPo / Mitt Romney on Facebook / Photo by Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons license 2.0]