On stage for the final debate before the South Carolina primary Thursday, Mitt Romney gave one of his longest and most detailed answers about how he’d seek to repeal the health care law, and how he’d replace it.
On the first point, Romney acknowledged that full repeal is at best an incredibly difficult proposition.
“The executive order is a beginning process. It’s one thing,” Romney said, referring once again to his promise to use executive power to take the law on once elected.
“But it doesn’t completely eliminate Obamacare,” he acknowledged.
To do that — a central tenet of Romney’s campaign plan — Romney said he’d probably need a Republican House and Senate. But Romney said he can do it without full control.
“If we don’t have a Republican majority, I think we’ll be able to convince some Democrats when the American people stand up loud and clear and say we do not want Obamacare, we do not want the higher taxes, we do not want a $500 billion cut in Medicare, to pay for Obamacare.”
Romney then laid out his plan to replace the law. Romney outlined legislation that will prevent people from losing insurance because of preexisting conditions — he didn’t say what would happen to people without insurance who have preexisting conditions — will make their insurance portable, and “allow people to own their own insurance rather than getting it from their employer.”
“So we’ll make it work in the way it’s designed to have health care act like a market. A consumer market,” Romney said. “As opposed to have it run like Amtrak and the Post Office.”
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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