DEBATE: Did Romney Miss a Big Opportunity in His Handling of the Supreme Court's ObamaCare Ruling?
Mitt Romney is now clarifying his campaign view on the health care law ruling, saying that he firmly stands behind the Supreme Court’s decision.
Romney told CBS News, “The Supreme Court has spoken and while I agree with the dissent, that’s taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said it’s a tax and therefore, it is a tax. They have spoken, there’s no way around that. You can try and say that you wish they decided a different way, but they didn’t. They concluded it was a tax, and that’s what it is. The American people know that President Obama has broken the pledge he made.”
Chris Hahn and Monica Crowley discussed this issue on today’s America's Newsroom.
Crowley feels that the Romney camp has handled this very poorly because she thinks this was a historic opportunity for them. “They kind of blew it
in the first couple of days after this decision because they should have been emphasizing the fact that high court did in fact call the mandate a tax. And instead what happened is you had a rather weak statement from Governor Romney talking about how he will repeal ObamaCare or ObamaTax, and that’s fine -- that’s what most Americans want -- but he should’ve been pounding from the beginning here.”
She continued, “From the moment that this decision was announced, he should’ve been pounding the fact that this is going to be the largest tax increase, especially in the middle class, in the history of the United States. Instead, one of his top strategists goes out and starts to call it a penalty trying to protect Romney from RomneyCare, and so on. They ended up muddying the truth and now I think the campaign is just starting to get back on track.”
Hahn completely agrees with Crowley and added, “[Romney] is the absolute worst person the Republicans could have nominated to deal with this issue.” He went on to say, “Whether it’s a tax, a penalty, whatever you want to call it, it’s going to make health care more affordable for millions of Americans and the only people that are going to have to pay anything additional are people who have been free riders on the system -- asking you, and I, and our neighbors to pay for their health care costs.”
Crowley asserted that Hahn’s statement wasn’t exactly true. Watch the full debate below:
