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A 2006 memo penned by Newt Gingrich praised the health reform law Mitt Romney piloted as governor of Massachusetts, and threatens to undercut the former House speaker's criticism of that plan.
A memo (first unearthed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal) distributed through Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation credits Romney and his state's health reform law as a positive development.
"The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," Gingrich wrote. "We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100 percent insurance coverage for all Americans."
That would seemingly temper Gingrich's criticism of the Massachusetts plan as the "forerunner of Obamacare."
Gingrich has similarly criticized the individual mandate contained both in Romney and President Obama's health reforms, despite having supported a similar model for health reform in the 1990s. He's since disavowed such a plan.
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What?!!!! A politician flip-flopping?! Unheard of!!!!! LMAO
Newt is such a worthless POS. He'll say anything to get elected, flip-flop on any topic. Total scumbag. Anyone who supports this A-hole is a complete moron. Lets remember, he was going to be IMPEACHED as speaker before he resigned in disgrace. Do you really want "THAT" as your president?
Did you like having a half impeached president named Clinton? Did you approve than?
Larry-314720, Bill Clinton was the BEST President we had in the last 60 years, and you and everybody else knows it!
Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton because they were so damned JEALOUS of him. But as you should know, each and every one of those Republicans who TRIED to impeach Bill Clinton were ALL voted out of office on the very next election! All of them.
Many people feel that low unemployment, budget surplus and booming economy are good. Other people feel that war, torture, economic disaster, massive shift in wealth from the middle class to the super rich and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis are good. Just depends on which party you belong to.
American,
Yes, Thank goodness Clinton caved to the republicans in Congress, adopted many of their reforms due to 1994 elections and did become a terrific president because of it!
All of the accomplishments of the Clinton administration really belong to Newt Gingrich and the republcans in congress. And then the republicans really showed what they could do over the next 8 years.
thank god we let common sense die with eisenhower, so we could act like the conceited child for millenium.
I want Sarah back! I'm tired of looking at Newt's ugly mug. If I have to listen to bombastic, self-serving blowhards, I want them to be beautiful!
You have to admit Sarah was pleasing to the eye and much easier to look at then the hags the Democrats offer up.
Hey, you've got Bachman! Granted, ideologically she's one of the scariest people I've ever seen in my life. But, still, she's not exactly bad looking. :)
Yes I'm a democrat, but I have to admit the republicans have cornered the market on the hotties. Palin, Bachmann, even O'Donnell ain't bad. They're all crazy but I bet a blast in the sack!
Men always have loved beauty without brains!
They've got an unlimited supply of Bimbos in the Republican Party (none of which would EVER be elected as POTUS, but it would be a comedic windfall for late night shows and comedians!).
Oh, c'mon!! She's not running for pres, but Michelle ain't bad.
TO: Larry-314720 who wrote:
You think that'll be part of the Republican Platform?
"Hey, they're dumb but they're cute." Sounds like a real winner right there, and for once, true.
I forced myself to watch those debates, hoping Michelle would come out in a bikini. And what do I get for my efforts? Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. Ugh.
I have heard that Bachmann removes her make up and wig for Halloween.
Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz is pretty hot and so is her friend Gabby Giffords.
Bachman? I cant say Bachman? is bad looking? That woman is scary looking. Put her picture on sex offenders cell walls for 60 days. Talk about castration. Them dudes will probalby turn queer.
Let there be NO MISTAKE! The GOP's opposition to the HCA law is STRICTLY an anti-Obama position. Republicans leaders to a man, and the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute were enthusiastic in their praise of Romneycare when it was passed in MA!! Some went out of their way to praise the mandate, originally a GOP idea, as the only way it could work! Now that Pres. Obama and the DEMs have passed a VERY similar bill, they unite in their opposition. WHAT HYPOCRITES!! It's all part of the plan to try and make sure that Obama is a one term president!
Time is running out on the GOP. They dont have much time left to privatize SS and Medicare, the reason the GOP created the current debt crisis and insured that debt continues by saddling Pres. Obama with a $1.3T deficit even before he was sworn in! More and more Americans are catching on to those facts. It's all over the Internet, complete with documentation. The crap will really hit the fan when one major media outlet prints an in depth report on "starve the beast".
Given that a political party was willing to endanger the country financial and economic survival just to make the rich even richer, it is critical that the GOP be driven from power for quite a while--- another 40 years sounds about right. This version of the GOP is dangerous to the survival of the republic as we know it. They seek nothing less than a society of the powerful 1% and the rest.
Remember that when you go to the polls in Nov., 2012!!
TOM: A very good post and your remarks are right on the money.
I wonder how many Republicans either know or are willing to accept that this health care plan was dreamed up by the Right like the Heritage Foundation?
Their new dodge now is to say that it's OK for a State to do it but not the Federal government. Then how come when Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation dreamed this up in the first place they did it with prospect of using it NATIONWIDE to counteract the Clinton's health care plan.
Party positions change. The health care reform law helps the middle class and does nothing for the super rich. Look at the republican governors today. It's pretty much all out war on the middle class.
TO: JimS-459172 who wrote:
Yep, especially when it comes to Republicans, and theirs change every few minutes, depending on who's listening.
Newt will and has said all kinds of stuff just like Ron Paul and his son. What ever they think might bring them headlines like they are smart? The only thing these guys do is to get into office and milk the system with fat pensions and benefits that no one else gets and as the saying goes let them eat cake.(In the Paul case the cake is the big white mint in the urinal) Newt has said so many stupid things and voted for so many stupid things and was a real clown as speaker of the house that his own ethics committee fined him over 300,000 dollars for his actions. Actions speak louder than words Newt or haven't you heard that one yet you dumb Georgia hick.
Jim, those are not big white mints in the urinal. Those are urinal deodorizers. So do not eat them anymore as they can wreck your health.
Mitt and Gingrich will say whatever they need to say to appeal to the Right Wing Base. Unfortunately, that works out to only 25% of the voters in the US. So, once either of them, or any of them get nominated as the GOP Candidate for President, we will see the big push for the "Right Wing Conservative to begin to crab sideways towards the middle, and become the latest incarnation of the George W. Bush "Compassionate Conservative" which he also held himself out to be in his attempt to appeal to the rest of us. Look what that got us, and just what are the solutions the GOP is offering us? The very same failed principals that got us into this fiscal mess in the first place. No solutions, no answers, no plan, other than more of the same.
Simply pitiful.
ATC: I don't get the drift of your post. Are you bemoaning the fact that the GOP is not conservative enough or that you disapporove of the Right and support the Left???
Georgians old enough to remember loathe Gingrich. Georgia Republican politicians can't stand him, and they'll leave him at the alter in the end. He's made too many enemies over the years, and too many stupid assumptions, but that's his Larger-Than-God ego is bigger than his vocabulary.
He's a card-carrying, ethics-violating, serial-adulterer, lying megalomaniac. He's underestimated his opponents AND his friends at every turn, treated people badly at every opportunity. Callista doesn't seem much nicer.
Face it, Republicans, Romney is your best shot. I love it. I hope, if he gets into office (but he won't), that he flip-flops again and provides the U.S. with affordable healthcare.
Actually, there's another possibility. I cover it here:
http://porterrockwell.newsvine.com/_news/2011/11/15/8820495-inevitable-romney
Gosh if Newt were president we would not have all those teleprompter expenses. Of course Newt would not be as transparent as Obama. I am sure Newt would have some government secrets and hide things. We know Obama would not hide anything from the public. Heck, I am also sure Newt would not read important legislation like the Heath Care Reform Bill, Arizona's Immigration Law and then comment on both. I am sure Newt's Attorney General and leader of the Department of Justice would give firearms to Mexican Drug Lords to kill FBI agents, and then deny it. In addition, I am sure Newt would not have an annual budget to give Congress at anytime in his term. Gosh that Newt and Obama have a lot in common don't they?
Larry - you forgot that Newt was born in the United States and is a Christian rather than a Muslim. And, he is a lot easier to find in a dark room.
Newt would find you in a dark room. He'd try to grope you!
He would fix the economy though.
TO: JimS-459172 who wrote:
Hey carnival barker! What a tickle!
If I found myself in a dark room with Newt Gingrich, I don't think I'd ever stop screaming!
LOL!
I think you are getting Newt mixed up with Cain. Cain was the front runner a couple of months ago.
What is this teleprompter trip you guys have been on for three years? Is Obama the first to use one? Have I just been imagining things for the past 40 years when I saw EVERY president using one? Let's please get past the ridiculous insults. Of course...it probably started with Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, so it must be repeated endlessly
Oh my god, try sleeping with him.
Not for 10 million dollars.
I'll bet 10,000 we could.
Bottom line is that any republican who is not running for reelection supports the health care reform that President Obama pushed through because they know it is good for America. But if they have to face tea party voters, they oppose it because opposing it is good for them.
Gsegal, you got that right. Any politician who is out for himself will NOT get my vote!
American,
It's too bad you think the "health care" PUSHED through by the dems will make health care cheaper, make it more accessible to everyone, I feel sorry for you.
In case you haven't heard, many of the nations young, bright minds are opting out of medicine as a career because of the proposed "health care" crap. For the first time, medical schools are down in enrollment. So, where will your precious health care be?
Regarding Clinton: He did become a fine president because he was pushed into adopting many of the reforms the 1994 republican Congress brought to be.
BERNIE: Democrats made a serious and genuine attempt to include Republicans in the process. As usual, all they did was try to stall, gum up the works and make any real progress impossible. So spare me the "pushed through" nonsense. Your party would do it in a heartbeat, had they the opportunity to and have done it many times in the past.
You've got no one to blame about the health car plan but the GOP. This is a creation conceived up by CONSERVATIVES like the Heritage Foundation and others. I can't wait to see the Obama/Romney debates when Willard will parse his words and try to rationalize that his health care plan is just fine for Massachusetts but poison for the entire nation. LOL
I don't think you want to see every American receive decent health care. It goes against your puritanical sensitivites, doesn't it? The rest of the industrialized world has true single payer health care, but not us. We're Americans and we know better then everyone else. We're Marlboro Men, riding tall in the saddle and are totally self sufficient. Texas gunslingers.
Com'on Newt, show some backbone. At least your party will respect you the morning after. You know Slick Willy half way converted you to our socaialist way. Your own memo confirms that.
And you also picked up a few Play'ah tricks from Slick Wille you sly dog you. Cause she be lookin like a "Super Freak" she'za "Super Freak" she's Super Freak'aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
With the White House lost the best the GOP can do at this point is to keep retired janitors from voting.
"With the White House lost ...."
Don't let down your guard. The yo-yo politics so far should convince you that anything can happen.
It must be tough to be a republican. If you actually have a good idea, you must immediately renounce it. The PARTY will tell you what to think, and when to think it. George Orwell is smiling somewhere.
I think it would be embarrasing to be a Republican and have to pretend that one of these clowns would actually be able to run the government anywhere but right into the ground.
We are already heading "into the ground". We need someone with a solution to stop that.
by the way it was the wives of the MA legislature that told their husbands to work out romneycare it wasn't Mitt. You drive through a tunnel someday.
That would be the same health care program the gopers negotiated and got in 2010 then refused to vote for?
Even after getting billions in concessions for BIG PHARMA and Bill Frist's family?
How utterly shocking, I tell you, that a right-winger simply forgets what he did to help average Americans when the rest of the rabid and delusional right accuses them of being sensible.
Look how low the right-wing mobs masquerading as political parties have gotten. So utterly delusional. So utterly self-destructive. So utterly unAmerican.
So right-wing normal.
Im smelling a TRUMP in here......
Wait, see...........
Mind boggling. Maybe obamacare is a good idea but you need to be against it because it is called obamacare. But there does seem to be a need for universal health care as in all the other major economies. It's cost and conscious. Lowest cost with everybody getting treatments.
Marshall, ObamaCare may allow more people to get insured, but nothing was done about controlling costs and probably will only raise costs. Had the government option passed, it would have most likely added even more to costs.
uh-huh......... Real consistent. Have you re-read any of his newsletters recently? You know, the biased, racist ones? Oh, wait a minute. He didn't know what was in them, he just published them. Now I get it.
Ron Paul 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Typical hypocrite at his best! All of these republican candidates are going to book stores where you can conveniently buy their book for them to sign. Typical republican style. Take your money while feeding you full of garbage and lies! If any of these fools are elected, we the middle class will be gone for good all in the name of profits!
Down with the GOP self serving fools!
Obama has banked $7,000,000 in 3 years from book sales since he became president.
I think that makes him a hypocrite as well and one of the hated 1%.
Wow! $7,000,000 in the bank and he still is off on vacation and getting in many rounds of golf on American tax payers. Sad most of his supports don't pay any federal taxes.
Newt is a cheat, liar and opportunist!! He was booted out of congress, fined 300K for his lie, cheated on his wives and now says he asked for divorce from his second wife whereas in reality it was his wife who did so!! Do we want this liar and cheat in the Whitehouse??
I really don't care about his personal life, but if we refuse to vote for liars, then we all need to stay home at the next election. I actually cannot imagine any honest politician ever getting elected or re-elected.
these guys really do make it too easy
So both Republican frontrunners favored Obama's healthcare plan.
ObamneyCare is the more conservative approach to universal healthcare. Watch Romney's defense of it, in a recent interview.
The problem is that Obama's race makes the white South (and a part of the rest of the Country) crazy. And those people have taken over the GOP.
Obama's race has nothing to do with peoples opinions on healthcare. My own opinion is that he is more or less the Democrats salesman here pushing the policies of Democrats leaders, so if we changed places with another Democrat, probably would make little difference.
Some health care reform was needed, but I feel overall the bill was a bad one and actually would like to see it repealed and replaced with a better one.