NY Times Hides Romney's Health Care Hypocrisy

A New York Times article on Mitt Romney embracing the health care reform he passed in Massachusetts hid the fact that Romney has promised to repeal President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

The Times reported that Romney recently “talked about the health care law he championed as governor of Massachusetts” and quoted Romney saying: “I got everybody in my state insured. ... One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance.”

But the Times left out the most important fact on this controversial campaign issue: If he becomes president, Romney plans to undo the law that will provide insurance to all Americans. He has proposed repealing President Obama's Affordable Care Act, which requires that all Americans have health insurance and has even pledged to gut the Affordable Care Act on his first day in office by granting waivers from the law to all 50 states.

Furthermore, Romney's plans for Medicaid would leave many Americans in worse shape than they were before passage of the Affordable Care Act. Romney plans to change Medicaid from a federal program to a system in which the federal government gives a fixed amount of money to each state. According to Bloomberg News, this plan would cut Medicaid by $1.26 trillion over nine years.

As the American College of Physicians has noted, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed a similar plan issued by Romney's running mate and predicted that it could require states to make “considerable cutbacks” in Medicaid. CBO stated that such cutbacks might involve reduced eligibility, reduced “coverage of fewer services, lower payments to providers, or increased cost-sharing by beneficiaries -- all of which would reduce access to care.”

In contrast with the Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and The Los Angeles Times all reported that Romney boasted about his health reform in Massachusetts while simultaneously opposing the federal Affordable Care Act.