The Mitt Romney campaign is voicing little surprise at the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board’s scathing critique of the potential presidential candidate and the health care plan he put into place as Massachusetts governor.
“The WSJ has been writing editorials against the Massachusetts health care plan since before the plan was actually put into place,” Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul told The Daily Caller.
The day of Romney’s speech in Ann Arbor, Michigan – to lay out his “2012 principles for health-care reform” – the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board lambasted what has since been called “Romneycare” as the predecessor to “Obamacare.”
“As everyone knows, the health reform Mr. Romney passed in 2006 as Massachusetts Governor was the prototype for President Obama’s version and gave national health care a huge political boost,” the editorial read. “Mr. Romney now claims ObamaCare should be repealed, but his failure to explain his own role or admit any errors suggests serious flaws both in his candidacy and as a potential President.”
The Journal editorial did not pull any punches, arguing that Romney’s vision in Massachusetts was so misguided that he would do well to just run on the ticket with Obama’s.
“More immediately for his Republican candidacy, the debate over ObamaCare and the larger entitlement state may be the central question of the 2012 election. On that question, Mr. Romney is compromised and not credible. If he does not change his message, he might as well try to knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket,” the editorial concluded.
Saul told TheDC, however, that critics may continue to go after what Romney did in Massachusetts, but his speech today is about the future.
“We didn’t go into today expecting to quiet the critics,” she wrote in an email. “What Governor Romney is doing is laying out his reform plans to replace Obamacare once it is repealed.”
Despite the Journal’s current distaste for the Republican, back in 2006 the paper actually had a bit of praise for Romney as one of the few with the gumption to discuss health care.
“Give Mr. Romney credit as a rare Republican willing at least to discuss health care. In that he’s miles ahead of GOP Congressional leaders, who won’t even vote on pro-market reforms,” the April 12, 2006 editorial read. “We certainly favor state policy experiments, and Mr. Romney may have done the best he could given his far-left legislature. The new law also avoids the worst coercive pitfalls of Hillary Clinton’s 1993 reform.”