Mitt Romney, On 60 Minutes, Cites Emergency Room As Health Care Option For Uninsured [View all]

[TomCADem]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured.

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," he said in an interview with Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

This constitutes a dramatic reversal in position for Romney, who passed a universal health care law in Massachusetts, in part, to eliminate the costs incurred when the uninsured show up in emergency rooms for care. Indeed, in both his book and in high-profile interviews during the campaign, Romney has touted his achievement in stamping out these inefficiencies while arguing that the same thing should be done at the national level.

* * *
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Romney stressed that each state should address the problem of the uninsured through different means. But he didn't speak with the same alarm about the cost of emergency room care.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/mitt-romney-60-minutes-health-care_n_1908129.html

---

I guess we should not be surprised given his view that the poor have it good with a great safety net, so he isn't worried about them.