He did it again! Yes, he actually did it again. We have yet another gaffe to begin the week with, and this one may have legs. It's already starting to resonate with people. Folks are tweeting and posting up a storm.
During his 60-Minutes interview with Scott Pelley, the Mittbot said those without health insurance can go to the Emergency Room if they're sick.
Close your mouth.
Take a deep breath.
Again.
Now relax.
Yes. He actually said this. And it's yet another contradiction. Truly, this man is a gift that just keeps on giving.
Go below the squiggle to view the latest Mittastrophe.
Pelley asked Romney the following: "Does the government have a responsibility to provide healthcare to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
Romney's answer:
"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance....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."When told that Emergency Room visits are ridiculously expensive, Romney suggested that people could go to a clinic.
But wait! It gets better.
As reported by the Huffington Post, this stance differs from what he told Morning Joe back in 2010.
"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way."Um, didn't he just say the government's answer to caring for the uninsured was the ER? Does this man even remember any of the sh*t he says? I hope OFA nails him on this one.
Edited to add this money quote from the Huffington Post article where Romney mentions the "S" word:
And in a 2007 interview with Glenn Beck, Romney called the fact that people without insurance were able to get "free care" in emergency rooms "a form of socialism."Oh, noesssss! SOCIALISM!
"When they show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is," he said at the time. "So my plan did something quite different. It said, you know what? If people can afford to buy insurance ... or if they can pay their own way, then they either buy that insurance or pay their own way, but they no longer look to government to hand out free care. And that, in my opinion, is ultimate conservativism."
Some comments from around the "internets:"
Reddit Politics
[–]helpadingoatemybaby 157 points 3 hours ago
Well, in his defense, the emergency room costs nothing to anyone. It's like magic, but with bandages.
Investor-village.com
Mitt Romney, On 60 Minutes, Cites Emergency Room As Health Care Option For UninsuredWay to go Mitt. ER is the most expensive way in the world to treat patients. He came up with his Mass. plan to avoid the high cost of health care at the ER. This guy is a work of art. The TP has actually taken control of his brain.
HINTERLAND GAZETTE:
SMH: It is me or did Mitt Romney just show how 'elitist' he is by suggesting that people without insurance can get medical attention from emergency rooms and clinics? Isn't an emergency room meant for 'emergencies?' That's akin to the 47 percent insult he leveled against more than half of Americans in May, saying they will vote for Obama because they depend on the government for hand-outs.
Huffington Post
eproduces
i NEVER, wear mittens
2126 Fans Become a fan
30 seconds ago ( 2:46 AM)i think this ER quote tops even the 47%. no kidding. what a dumbazz. i almost starting to feel sorry for the republican party. almost.Obama 2012
USMESSAGEBOARD.COM
Lakhota
Registered User
Member #31132I'm 65, and I haven't seen it all, but Romney is by far the most fucked up presidential candidate in my lifetime so far.
CBS.com
by ericinca September 24, 2012 2:48 AM EDT
I'm going to vote for the human being.
Does the ER treat MS? (3+ / 0-)Edited to add this:
Now that is the question a good interviewer would have asked Romney. Make it personal. Make it something he could relate to.
If of course it was shown he could relate to other human beings.by Shotput8 on Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 08:27:27 AM PDT
Dearest Mitt,
You can read the full article HERE.
Sun Sep 23, 2012 at 10:47 PM PT: ThatPoshGirl has posted a great diary on this, citing her own personal experience. Check it out HERE.
This is a MUST SEE from Morning Joe!
During an interview that aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes”, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talked about emergency rooms as a solution for the uninsured.Gawker:
“If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die,” he said. “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.”That’s different from 2006, when Romney used to talk about emergency rooms as the problem. Massachusetts had just passed its universal coverage law that was meant, among other things, to move care out of emergency rooms, where costs are higher, and into primary care offices.Romney wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2006, shortly after the law passed, arguing that emergency care for those without coverage drove up costs for everyone who did have insurance.“By law, emergency care cannot be withheld,” he wrote. “Why pay for something you can get free? Of course, while it maybe free for them, everyone else ends up paying the bill, either in higher insurance premiums or taxes.”
Let Them Eat Emergency Rooms: Mitt Romney Says ERs Will Provide Care for the UninsuredRaw Story:
On 60 Minutes last night, Mitt Romney told Scott Pelley he does too have a solution to the problem of America's millions of uninsured citizens: Send them to the emergency room."Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," Romney said. "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."Problem solved! No, wait. The opposite.The saddest part is the Romney knows this isn't a viable solution to the health care crisis. After all, he said so himself on numerous occasions.
Romney: Health care ‘through emergency rooms’ is sufficientTPM:
As Sarah Kliff points out for the Washington Post, the Emergency Medical Treatment Active and Labor Act is the law that has required hospitals to stabilize someone with a life-threatening condition regardless of health insurance status since 1986. But even with this law, it doesn’t guarantee treatment in emergency rooms. Kliff points to a study published in the journal Health Affairs that documented many hospitals manage to avoid treating those without coverage.“The ambulance drove past several for-profit hospitals much closer to her home en route to Denver Health Medical Center. The ambulance attendants reportedly explained to the patient’s husband that the facilities they were bypassing did not treat uninsured patients. The patient remained in Denver Health’s medical intensive care unit for nearly a week, incurring charges of $66,619,” the study said.
Comments made by Mitt Romney on Sunday night to CBS News reveal again, in stark relief, how fully he’s abandoned the basic tenets of the health care reform law he enacted in Massachusetts.
“The guy has come completely full circle,” says Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT who advised Romney on the Massachusetts law and has expressed his dismay about Romney’s shift in several public fora....The new message reflects a Republican Party consensus against using government power to help insure the tens of millions of Americans who lack coverage — the Affordable Care Act’s key accomplishment.In 2008, President George W. Bush created an election year controversy when he boasted, “[P]eople have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” But for Romney, it’s the culmination of a years’ long conservative pressure campaign, which has forced him to abandon the premise of his 2006 Massachusetts health care law. To fully appreciate the enormity of Romney’s shift, you need go no further than Romney’s own book or a series of public statements he made, some as recently as 2010.
Romney’s Advice To The Uninsured: Go To The ERMother Jones:
During a 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley on Sunday evening, Mitt Romney suggested that there are already adequate measures in place to protect Americans who lack health insurance. According to Romney, Americans should just go to the hospital to seek care, regardless of the crippling expenses they may incur without adequate health coverage ... Although Obamacare and Romney’s own health reform law in Massachusetts both overcome this hurdle by mandating and subsidizing health insurance for all residents, irrespective of pre-existing conditions, Romney no longer seems to believe that his own program — which has improved the lives of millions in Massachusetts while nearly eliminating the children’s uninsured rate in the state — is effective enough to be implemented in other states.
Mitt Romney isn't just downplaying his signature accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts, he's developed a sudden amnesia about the policy problems that lead him to implementing it....Now Romney seems fine with notion of people waiting until they need to go to the emergency room to get care. Perhaps the sequel to No Apology should be titled "I'm Sorry for all the Stuff I did That Conservatives Don't Like."The New Civil Rights Movement:
Romney: Emergency Room Is How America Should ‘Provide Care’ For UninsuredTHE VIRGINIAN-PILOT:
This entire conversation is ridiculous at this point in our history, and Romney, more than anyone should, should know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Romney’s shocking lack of understanding of these very basics make him unqualified to even discuss health care — much less be president.
Did you watch '60 Minutes' tonight? Good grief!NY Magazine:
You really have to wonder if Governor Romney has full control over what will come out of his mouth when he opens it. Here's a quote that made my head spin:"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance, - 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."Does that mean that he, the guy who touts himself as THE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMAN in the race, thinks going to the ER for a hang-nail is the best way to go if you can't afford health care?
Right, if you lack health insurance, you can’t receive regular medical treatment, but if your illness develops to the point where you are carted off to the emergency room, you will get treatment, though you will also get a bill that may ruin you financially. That is not what Romney used to say about making emergency room care the only medical plan, but it is now Romney’s final answer. He is running to do two specific things: cut income tax rates, which will overwhelmingly benefit the rich, and make sure the 50 million uninsured Americans do not get access to subsidized non-emergency medical care.AMERICAblog:
Romney endorses "socialism" on 60 Minutes in yet another flip-flop
You can only flip flop so much before you start tripping up badly.
Mitt Romney's latest? He just endorsed "socialism" last night. Which probably won't go over too well with the GOP base two days after Romney declared in his federal tax forms that to him America was a "foreign country."
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