[UPDATED x4] Mitt Romney in 60-Minutes Interview: Need healthcare? Go to the ER.

byWFBMMFollow

262 COMMENTS       SUN SEP 23, 2012 AT 10:15 PM PDT

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."

"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."

Oh, noesssss!  SOCIALISM!

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 Uninsured

Way 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

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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 #31132

I'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.

Edited to add this great comment from Kos member Shotput8

Does the ER treat MS? (3+ / 0-)
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

Romney On Governments Responsibility To Provide Healthcare For Uninsured

Edited to add this:

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.

12:03 PM PT:

This is a MUST SEE from Morning Joe! 

12:11 PM PT: The Washington Post weighs in:

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.

“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.”

Gawker:

Let Them Eat Emergency Rooms: Mitt Romney Says ERs Will Provide Care for the Uninsured

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.

Raw Story:

Romney: Health care ‘through emergency rooms’ is sufficient

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.

TPM:

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.

12:51 PM PT: ThinkProgress:

Romney’s Advice To The Uninsured: Go To The ER

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.

Mother Jones:

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 Uninsured

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.

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT:

Did you watch '60 Minutes' tonight? Good grief!

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?

NY Magazine:

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."

Romney to teacher "I didn't ask you a question"

byThatPoshGirlFollow

343 COMMENTS    SAT SEP 22, 2012 AT 07:20 PM PD

When I saw this I had to share it. It has only received around 300 views so far, and it really needs to go viral. It is a video of a CO teacher describing her experience at a round table with Mitt Romney. According to the teacher, Romney was going on about schools failing and how we need a voucher system. When she said she had an answer for that he told her "I didn't ask you a question."

The video has captions, but I have also included a partial transcript below the fold.

When i was asked to speak with Mitt Romney it seemed like a very important thing to me, and I wanted to put a lot of careful thought into what I would say. So, I went to the round table discussion very optimistic and interested in hearing what he had to say.

When he sat down, one of the first questions he asked was, he said "I understand there is a teacher here today, which one of you is a teacher?"

So, I raised my hand, thinking that's a good thing, he's interested in education, but it wasn't a good thing. I felt like his view was a little old-fashioned and I was surprised by it. He went on to kind of lecture me about schools and how bad they are. He talked bad about the teacher's union. He was talking about the importance of private schools and voucher systems.

At one point, I said to him, "I have an answer for that." And he said, "I didn't ask you a question."

ALEC: The Scheme to Remake America, One State House at a Time

byBill MoyersFollow

87 COMMENTS   WED SEP 26, 2012 AT 08:04 AM PDT

This week, we report on the most influential corporate-funded political force most Americans have never heard of — ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.

In state houses around the country, hundreds of pieces of boilerplate ALEC legislation are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote, and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers — each accomplished without the public ever knowing who’s behind it.

We explore ALEC’s self-serving machine at work, acting in a way one Wisconsin politician describes as “a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests.”

I hope you tune in to watch "United States of ALEC", and share the news. Here's a preview:123



By the way, join me for my first LIVE CHAT of 2012. You can set up a reminder for yourself and start submitting questions for me here. I look forward to it.

“United States of ALEC” is a collaboration between as Okapi Productions LLC and the Schumann Media Center, headed by Bill Moyers, which supports independent journalism and public watchdogs including the Center for Media and Democracy, whose investigators are featured in the report.

Scott Brown still shamelessly flogging Warren on Native American issue

byJoan McCarterFollow

79 COMMENTS   FRI SEP 28, 2012 AT 12:06 PM PDT

Scott "no apologies" Brown.

Sen. Scott Brown has definitively answered the question of whether he has any shame. He doesn't. He has a brand new ad out hitting Elizabeth Warren on her claim to be a Native American, pushing an issue her employers have uniformly debunked.

Titled “Got Caught,” the ad features members of the public suggesting the undocumented claim is untrue, with the first speaker calling it “a lie.” [...]

A Globe review of Warren’s legal career, which included two dozen interviews, also found a wide range of professors and administrators who recruited or worked with Warren who said her ethnic background played no role in her hiring.

But he still released this ad. And that's after a week in which Brown has been pummeled forrefusing to apologize to the Cherokee nation for the racist behavior of some of his senior staff at a recent rally. And after his only public statement on that event was basically to blame Elizabeth Warren for making claims that forced his staff to be racist assholes.

Now, because he has absolutely nothing else to run on and refuses to engage on his record or on the issues, he's pushing the Native American thing, again. He's trading away his only advantage in this race—his image as a good guy—for cheap hits.

That's truly a sign of a desperate, losing politician. Not to mention a colossal asshole.

U.S. Treasury Department Guns for Japanese Yakuza Groups

Sep 28, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

In a breakthrough effort to combat Japan’s organized crime syndicates, the U.S. Treasury has started imposing sanctions on their business operations. Jake Adelstein on what this means for the mobsters—and why Chinese gangs have avoided similar crackdowns.

The U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on Japan’s second largest yakuza crime syndicate, the Sumiyoshi-kai and its leaders today. The sanctions make it possible to freeze their U.S. assets and block their transactions with American corporations or other entities.

 

This is the second time the Obama administration has taken steps to disrupt the yakuza’s activities since it identified the Japanese mafia as a significant criminal organization.

The Sumiyoshi-Kai’s leader, Shigeo Nishiguchi, and the underboss Hareaki Fukuda, were added to the U.S. Treasury’s list of persons that are targeted for punitive financial measures.

The Sumiyoshi-kai is a designated organized crime group in Japan, regulated but not outlawed. It has offices, the members have business cards; fan magazines, comics, and books list the top executives and celebrate their exploits. The Sumiyoshi-kai, with close to 11,000 members, is based in Tokyo, with offices in the luxurious Ginza area and flashy Akasaka. The group’s moneymaking activities include real estate, construction, prostitution, temporary staffing, as well as the standard extortion, blackmail, and racketeering. In general, the Sumiyoshi-kai is less violent than other organized crime groups in Japan, and was active in offering emergency aid to Japanese citizens after the earthquake last year, even opening it’s office doors to stranded commuters, including foreigners.

In February of this year, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on the most prominent yakuza crime group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, as well as its top boss and his underboss.

Since the Yamaguchi-gumi merged with another Tokyo yakuza group, the Kokusui-kai, in November 2005, the Sumiyoshi-kai have rapidly been losing control of their turf in Tokyo. Factions of the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai have been waging minor gang wars over the last few years, recently culminating in shocking violence.

Members of the Japanese Yakuza Takahashi-gumi crime syndicate wait with their 'mikoshi' portable shrine before carrying it through the streets, as part of the second day of the Sanja festival, at Asakusa Shrine in Asakusa district, on May 19, 2012, in Tokyo, Japan. (Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Getty Images)

On Sept. 2, a group of 10 men wearing ski-masks burst into the Roppongi dance Club Flower at approximately 3:40 a.m. and assaulted four men and women sitting together in the VIP room, clubbing one to death and injuring the others, while 300 other people were present. The attack was believed to be a reprisal for an attack on Yamaguchi-gumi Kokusui-kai members in Roppongi on Dec. 14 of last year—an attack in which Sumiyoshi-kai members were allegedly involved.

The Sumiyoshi-kai also has been involved with Japan’s nuclear industry for several years, including receiving pay-offs from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in the past. Members of the Sumiyoshi-kai were arrested this year for their role in illegally providing labor to TEPCO. The Sumiyoshi-kai has been providing exploitable labor for Japan’s nuclear industry for more than a decade, including the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, both before and after the triple meltdown on March 11 last year. TEPCO, while primarily a Japan-based company, was involved with building a nuclear power plant in southern Texas.

The group’s moneymaking activities include real estate, construction, prostitution, temporary staffing, as well as the standard extortion, blackmail, and racketeering.

The U.S. Treasury has not clarified whether the yakuza have any assets under U.S. jurisdiction or the results of the sanctions so far.

It should be noted that the U.S. government has still not designated the Triads, China’s mafia, as a significant criminal organization, according to U.S. government sources largely due to lack of cooperation from Hong Kong, Macau, and China. Also, the same sources say that Chinese lobbyists and some influential Las Vegas casino operators have pushed hard to keep the Triads off the list for fear that it would jeopardize their “cash-cow” casino operations in Macau.

The U.S. government is continuing to take a hard look at Japanese mafia groups and will probably designate one or two more within the next year.

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