Romney: Obama Never Had Control of Health Care
"He decided he would hand this over to [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and the House," Romney, who ran a failed bid for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2008, said on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday. "He did not fashion his own bill with the measures that he thought were critical for the bill. And the House has created something which is, frankly, entirely partisan. It's not the kind of bipartisanship which the president promised he'd bring to Washington."
But the suggestion that Mr. Obama's agenda has been dominated by the liberal wing is dubious. In fact, many Democrats have expressed their own frustration at the White House's reluctance to aggressively push for a public option – government-provided insurance designed to compete with private insurers and rein in overall costs.
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The unrest among the Democrats is fed by the belief that Republicans are more concerned with handing the president a defeat on this hallmark issue than with passing meaningful reform – a view expressed by Rahm Emanuel, Obama's own chief of staff in a New York Times story Wednesday.
That feeling has increased speculation that Democrats might use the heft of their congressional majorities to go it alone, ending any chance for a bipartisan solution.
But, as CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports, administration sources now say that if liberals want the public option, they'll have to sell it themselves as the president remains committed to a bipartisan solution.
But Romney said the president hasn't been doing enough to foster Republican support.
"He's campaigning, which is what he does best. He continues to campaign, but what we really need now is leadership from the president that works in a bipartisan basis to fashion a bill that improves our healthcare system that gets people insured, and make sure we don't have folks losing insurance if they lose their job."
Romney insisted that plans for a public option should be ditched, saying "you don't want the government getting in the business of insurance." In 2006, while Romney was governor, Massachusetts passed a universal health care bill without a public option. The plan has come under fire for not containing costs, but Romney defended the plan as being within budget projections.
You can watch the interview below: