This morning the former Massachusetts governor woke up to an unexpected valentine from the main Boston newspaper that once covered him. A Globe editorial defends the 2006 state health care reform law Romney signed as a compromise with a Democratic legislature that “ward[ed] off various schemes favored by business”:
All in all, then, the role Romney played was of a governor sensitive to business concerns and worried about the state’s business climate. Now, conservatives have come to view that individual mandate as an intolerable imposition on personal liberty, rather than an insistence on personal responsibility. In no small part that’s because such a mandate also plays a central role in Obama’s health care plan. But if they weren’t hyperventilating about the national law, they might come to recognize that the role Romney played on the state level was skillful, creative, and business-friendly.
I’m sure we’ll see that last line in a campaign ad before long. But it’s still not an easy nuance to convey in the heat of a campaign–especially when your source is a paper, despite its quality, not exactly known as a trusted source among conservative activists.
P.S. The Globe editorial is getting buzz online today, but less noticed was the grudging praise offered by the city’s conservative tabloid, the Herald, on the law’s five-year anniversary last week:
Now, it’s beyond debate that Massachusetts has dealt with the coverage problem. More than 200,000 residents who were uninsured in 2006 are insured today; close to 98 percent of the state’s citizens are now covered when they get sick….
But there’s just no getting around it — that expansion has come at a premium, including to taxpayers in other states. Two-thirds of the newly-insured here are getting free care or premium subsidies funded by taxpayers, and the federal government has spent hundreds of millions to subsidize those costs….
The health care reform law adopted in Massachusetts is an encouraging, if very costly, work in progress.
Not sure how much that take will help Romney with New Hampshire primary voters angry about “ObamaCare,” however….