“Kasie Hunt” - Mitt Romney to give big health care speech in Michigan

Kasie Hunt

May 10, 2011

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54651.html

Mitt Romney's major health care speech on Thursday has a single goal: ending the current fixation on "RomneyCare."

Donors ask about the Massachusetts health care law in private fundraisers. The ladies of "The View" asked Romney to explain it when he went on to try and sell his book. His triumphant return to New Hampshire back in March resulted in a crush of stories about it. After a foreign policy speech in Las Vegas in April, an audience member asked about health care instead. And when he went back to New Hampshire that month to court the tea party, they only asked him two questions — and one of them was about health care.

Romney will try to change that narrative Thursday at the University of Michigan's Cardiovascular Center, where he'll outline a plan to "repeal and replace ObamaCare" — and try to fundamentally change a conversation that forces him to explain, over and over again, how the law he enacted as governor of Massachusetts is different from the national one President Barack Obama pushed through Congress.

The speech, a Romney campaign adviser said, will be aimed at changing that — and shifting to "a conversation about what he's going to do going forward rather than what he's done in the past."

In the speech, Romney won't spend much time talking about Massachusetts, and the plan he signed that now requires the state's citizens to buy health insurance — an individual mandate that was included in the federal law and drives Republican fury. And he'll move beyond the explanation he's been offering so far about how he can defend the Massachusetts plan — he's said he's "proud" of it — and still oppose the Obama plan.

"One thing I'd never do would be to impose a one-size-fits-all plan like ObamaCare on the nation. That's simply wrong, and it's unconstitutional," he said in New Hampshire last month at the tea party event. He also defended his attempts to solve the cost problems that arise when the uninsured use emergency rooms for primary care. "In my state, we were spending hundreds of millions of dollars giving out free care to people who [could have] afforded it for themselves. So I went to work to try and solve a problem. It may not be perfect — by the way, it isn't perfect," he said.

So far, those answers have just driven more questions. "Gov. Romney's answer that night was not quite adequate to addressing the concerns some poeple have," said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP who attended the tea party event.

Instead, he'll focus on repealing Obama's plan and outline steps for how it should be replaced. Among the key ideas are giving responsibility for care for the poor, uninsured and chronically ill back to states; offering a tax deduction to people who buy their own health insurance; making federal health care regulations more efficient; dealing with medical malpractice costs; and what Romney's exploratory committee calls a focus on making health care "more like a consumer market and less like a government program."

Observers say giving such an early address on the issue could help Romney in the long run — and, if done right, prove a major turning point in his as-yet-unnaounced campaign.

"It's smart for Romney to try and frame this issue early on his terms," said Mark McKinnon, a top GOP strategist who worked for John McCain. "It is wrapping around his axle every time he hits the presidential ignition."

"Presidential campaigns are driven by these moments — mileposts — they can shape the rest of the race," one Republican strategist said of the planned speech.

That means there's potentially a lot on the line. In interviews, several Republicans said if Romney can handle the health care issue, he's likely to win the GOP nomination in 2012.

"If he can message his way through this sticky thicket, he'll deserve to be the nominee," McKinnon said in an email.

But whether he can successfully move forward without spending some time discussing his record in Massachusetts isn't clear.

"I think there's no way to address the future without at least somewhat addressing the past," said Saul Anuzis, a member of the Republican National Committee and former chairman of the Michigan GOP. "Those who will look to take shots at Romney will try to equate what happened in Massachusetts with ObamaCare and I think it would be naive for us to assume that somehow you can ignore that issue." Anuzis, who was with Romney in 2008, said he's still uncommitted this time around.

Nearly the entire GOP field has united around opposition to Obama's health care law, and some have taken shots at Romney's law, too. Tim Pawlenty has criticized it, though he declined to do so in the recent Republican debate in South Carolina. Rudy Giuliani has said Romney should apologize. And Mike Huckabee called the Massachusetts law "socialized medicine" in his new book.

"If our goal in health-care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work," Huckabee wrote.