CBS/AP
Mitt Romney during an interview with "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday.
Mitt Romney appeared to reverse his opinion on emergency health care in an eyebrow-raising interview with 60 Minutes.
CBS News' Scott Pelley sat down with Romney on the campaign trail Sunday to discuss the election and the specifics of Romney's governing plan. When the conversation turned to health care, Pelley asked, "Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"
"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," Romney replied. "We pick them up in an ambulance and take them to a hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."
Pelley interjected, "That's the most expensive way to do it, in the emergency room."
Romney went on to repeat that different states have different approaches. Some choose emergency rooms, others clinics, and still others, like Romney’s own Massachusetts, a universal mandate. "But I wouldn’t take what we did in Massachusetts and say to Texas, 'You've got to take the Massachusetts model.'"
Pelley was right about emergency room care. It's the most expensive way to cover the uninsured, not only because the taxpayer (read: you) pays for it with higher premiums, but because folks without insurance are more likely to wait until their ailments need serious, protracted treatment. Catching a disease in its earliest stages can save a life, but it can also save money. Lots of money.
This cumbersome solution to the chronically uninsured is widely considered to be one of the key reasons why health care in this country was in need of an overhaul. It's fiscally damaging, to say nothing whatever of the moral implications.
Romney seemed to agree as recently as 2010. During an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Romney said "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 you have no responsibility. Particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way." That was two years ago.
Karen Finney over at The Hill pointed us to this telling quote from the man himself, at a GOP presidential primary debate in 2007. Romney declared, "the best kind of prevention you can have in healthcare is to have a doctor. And if someone doesn't have a doctor, doesn't have a clinic they can go to, doesn’t have health insurance to be able to provide the prescription drugs they need, you can’t be healthy. And you need to have health insurance for all of our citizens."
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Mitt & Twitt and now running against themselves, as well as the fake Barack Obama.
I think one of the many sad things about the Republicans nominee for President, Mitt Romney, is that by his sheer stupidity he has set the bar “so low” for future Republican Presidential candidates. I also believe he is actually a traitor to our country. Some of the things this American businessman, who wants' to be the President of the United States has done are absolutely appalling. Very sad and embarrassing indeed.
What planet does Romney live on? How many people have had heart attacks at their homes and died because they were by themselves? They couldn't call no one to come and pick them up by ambulance and take them to the emergency room!! This is about the stupidest comment I've heard to date from Romney. This man is so far out of touch with the American people, it's not even funny but really sad because he doesn't care about anyone, just himself and his queen Ann!!
Duhh...911 doesn't ask if you have insurance before they dispatch the ambulance and EMTS! And if they had Health Insurance, be it Medicaid under the raised income limits and expansion envisioned by ObamaCare, or subsidized with federal money raised in part by robbing $716 billion in Medicare trust funds and taxing by penalty of $1,200 on avg. the 6,000,000 individuals and families that are estimated not to purchase insurance as mandated due to the over $16,000 a year premium cost for a family policy, would that mean if they are home alone they would have some automatic summoning of an ambulance and EMTS without calling?
What planet are you living on, fool?
Keith, our hospital asks for cash upfront in the ER, and many ambulance companies do the same. My own health insurance states that I pay $200, unless admitted, for emergency room care.
No one promised a free ride, certainly not Romney, Judy. My statement is that no ambulance company or EMT responding to a 911 emergency determined to be a serious threat to the victims life will not refuse services. And that applies to whether you live in a very comfortable house in the suburbs or a homeless shelter.
Grandpa is emulating Romney by standing behind what he said even if he's not sure what it was he said...
He's confused enough, Judy. Facts only make him worse.
That's only been true since 1986 when COBRA/EMTALA was signed into law and only for stabilizing care and only if the hospital accepts Medicare money.
I found this out in the '90s when I was accosted by this guy outside the grocery store asking for a ride to the county hospital 20 miles away. He had been bitten by a black widow spider earlier in the day and the local hospital dressed his wound and gave him a pamphlet on wound care and sent him on his way. His hand was swollen to the size of a softball and in pain. They gave him no meds or change of dressing. I took him to BART(subway commuter train) and bought him a round trip ticket. The station agent got directions from his counterpart in Oakland and another person gave him bus fare. Being poor sucks.
You are so stupid you don't realize today that you were a mark then, do you, "good samaratarian".
As to your statement on Cobra...I was speaking universally in my comment, you are obsviously hung up on your own individual circumstances only, Miracle. And your monikor there show that...you, sir, are no "miracle"!
Of course it's stupid. Romney and Keith have already admitted the "Emergency Room" solution is not only the most expensive but also the most inefficient solution.
Republicans love failed policies. It's practically their "mission statement." "If it's too expensive and we know it will fail then it's for the GOP!"
Stupid is as stupid does, right Keith? Ha Ha Ha!
What I cannot understand is how this election is even close with such an uncaring, out of touch, and seemingly unintelligent candidate like Mitt Romney. I have to ask, what is wrong with the American people who elect wing nut Tea Baggers who are willing to bring the country to the financial brink and who don't even seem to know how children are conceived? It almost makes one lose faith in democracy.
Try the recent GAFFEs by Obama on CBS's 60 minutes with his callous dismissal of a question regarding his polycies responsibility for the lack of security in our consulate with the planned terrorist assisination of our Ambassador and his three coleagues in Libya and the Embassies that were overrun on 9/11 and in the aftermath by tossing off his statment "we have to expect BUMPS IN THE ROAD!!!"
How dare he...! and Obama has used this same stupidily insulting statement before recently when asked in an interview about the drop in of nation's GDP in the last quarter, and the rise in unemployment and rise in the number of people dropping out of the labor forces for lack of work opportunities, with the same: "BUMPS IN THE ROAD!"
I'll take Gov Romney over this fake failure anyday of the week!
Personally, I would have a real problem with a President who wasn't smart enough to know why the windows on jet aircraft don't open...
Honest folks, this one isn't a spoof...
http://carloz.newsvine.com/_news/2012/09/24/14073687-romney-doesnt-know-why-airplane-windows-wont-open-calls-the-closed-window-policy-a-real-problem-seriously
Once a distressed airplane has dropped to altidude or landed, perhaps there should be a way to ventilate, especially in the case of a cabin filled with smoke, Cab Driver. Airplanes have energency doors right? How about a few emergency windows?
By the way, my 5 yr old grandson saw his first ever new car at his state fairs new auto and truck show that had windows that actually one could roll up or down by hand. "Cool", was his reported reaction. Quite a helpful feature if an electrical fire knocked out the electronics, as well as if one were to be stranded in risinf waters in a flash flood, hich their state is prone to.
A few years ago a guy named D.B. Cooper developed an innovative use for a plane door that he opened at a low altitude... Security at airline check-ins has been continuously ever since.
See also the story of golfer Payne Stewart... Any attempt to "ventilate" an airplane would have to involve a "pilot override," and its asinine to suggest that some feature like that--which would distract a pilot's attention during a crisis--would be useful.
You and Mitt Romney are both very stupid men.
Distract the pilot? If a crew member was the one to inact the ventilation procedure?
That's bullcrap.
But I see you are in your usual assine positon of stalking my every comment again today, Cab Driver. Get a life, you are sooooo playing out of your league, fool!
Cabbie,
Rolling down a window, if possible at 30,000 feet would put out the fire and provide exciting, though very short term amusement for young children and hopeful presidential candidates. "But why would he even mention this?" This may have something to do with a new venture capital deal to promote Sonic style drive-ins at major airports - only works if you can roll down the windows.
I think you were too quick to dismiss what may be a true eureka moment for hopeful Romney.
You're correct Adam, and those drive-ins would give the airline owners a leg up on the Flight Attendant's Union in negotiations as well...
Actually, to engage in a bit of "religious bigotry," there's a story in the Book of Mormon about Babylonian-era "submarines" that used a ventilation system designed to work underwater...
'Twas a marvelous work and a wonder, I tell you...
Typical liberal media bullcrap to focus on that statement to come out of the duel interviews broadcast on CBS's 60 minutes last night, and pretending not to have noticed the extremely insulting and arrogant remark (dare I say GAFFE?) that Obama made when tossing aside the question on the lack of proper security and intelligence in Libya at our consulate and the resulting assassination of our Ambassador and three of his colleagues, and the storming of our embassies in over 20 countries and more American military deaths in Afghanistan by calling them "BUMPS IN THE ROAD"!!!!!
How dare he!...and this isn't the first time he used that toss off phrase to defuse a question on whether or not his policies are culpable for really bad outcomes. He used that also when our GDP figures dropped last quarter, and our unemployment numbers went upward, and the new jobs he was so proud of fell precipitously to far less numbers than what it takes to provide for the demographic growth of new individuals of work age entering the job market in each month. Just "BUMPS IN THE ROAD!"
With that attitude, and his statement on Univision last week in another interview, Obama admitted that he couldn't change Washington from the inside as he had expected he could when he ran as the candidate of HOPE and CHANGE in 2008, this President surely doesn't deserve reelection. Is there any wonder why this clueless amateur failed President stopped holding News conference back in April (5 mos ago) when he made that infamous GAFFE "The Private Sector is doing fine?" Whether its his foreign policy of withdrawal from the strong econimic, diplomatic, and military involvement in the world set by his four previous precessors, or his failure to gain the trust of the business world in the US due to his anti business, anti-finance rhetoric and policies, this President looks more an more (as does our nation) like Jimmy Carter's Presidency in the late 1970s. And he deserves to be made a one term failed President just as Carter was, for it!
But what does the liberal media do with these stupidly insulting statements by their darling Obama, the man that can do no wrong in their eyes? Ignore them, just as Little Lying Larry O'Donnell is ignoring them here...while focusing on the fact that as everyone knows, Mitt Romney answered a question about the provision of health care in this country if millions of people are without private health insurance policies when discussing the need to repeal, and replace it with less costly and sensible approaches , with his statement that there is no crisis: nobody goes without health care in this country; that clinics and emergency rooms are available to provide needed health care today, just as they always have been. Which is, of course, a true and accurate statement!
I'd suggest a psych room ER for Grandpa Fuzzy myself...
All this rhetoric and name-calling and he didn't say anything relevant do the question of prophylactic treatment...
And then of course he chimed in with the latest turd tossing from the Republican Talking Oinks crowd... One of my new friends changed their mind and thinks Grandpa may be getting paid for his drooling afterall...
Which is it Nyquil Nipper? Are you paid to act brain dead or does it just come naturally?
By propholactic treatment are you referring to Sandra Flukes desire for free (for heronly, as somebody will get stuck with the cost) oral contraceptives so she can enjoy riding bareback, or do preventive care which is available for a reasonable out of pocket cost by one of a number of routes, from fee for service public clinics on an income based sliding scale, or walk-in clinics established by for profit and non-profit medical service providers all over this country, Cab Driver. No one promised a free ride vs a vs health care in this country, and ObamaCare certainly is by no measure free, after all, is it, Cab Driver?
By propholactic treatment are you referring to Sandra Flukes desire for free (for heronly, as somebody will get stuck with the cost) oral contraceptives so she can enjoy riding bareback, or do preventive care which is available for a reasonable out of pocket cost by one of a number of routes, from fee for service public clinics on an income based sliding scale, or walk-in clinics established by for profit and non-profit medical service providers all over this country, Cab Driver. No one promised a free ride vs a vs health care in this country, and ObamaCare certainly is by no measure free, after all, is it, Cab Driver?
I knew you'd fall into the trap of not truly understanding the definition of the word "prophylactic."
Look it up, gonzo...
And that's a strawman you're molesting again with that "no free ride argument." Come to think of it, on the other post, you claimed hospital ER's did offer "free services."
Well, they will as long as the government guarantees payment in the event the patient can't afford it. And the government could've afforded a lot of medical care with the money spent occupying Iraq.
Preventive and safety...I used it well in both instances, whether its a "safety" or preventive birth control, or preventive health care, fool! You are realy off you game today, and why aren't you at work driving you hack around SLC, Cab Driver. Staying home with a hangover from falling off the wagon again, no doubt!
Cabbie,
Someone being paid for this stuff - seriously?
I checked it out - apparently they pay about 15 cents a post. Say you were disciplined and could average 20 posts a day - 600 a month - takes up 2 or 3 hours a day - 1000 words an hour. (If you took a day off - you would have to double down on other days.) Day after day after meaningless day - you end up with just a bit more than the minimum wage in 1966. But then there's the prestige factor of posting here at nbcNEWS.Com ...
Babylonian submarines...
Hummmmm. I checked out the design specifications - I don't believe I would have volunteered for the maiden voyage.
Yes, check out "Jaredite barges." And there was only one voyage from the Middle East to the New World by those folks... And somehow they all died out before the next group of Hebrews arrived, but we can't find any DNA among Native Americans except that which can be traced back to Central Siberia around 15,000 years ago.
http://packham.n4m.org/ships.htm
Richard Packham is a good friend, and he has this PhD scientist's post on his site questioning the science of the BOM claims. I actually posted something similar a few years before (the Jaredite story has some pretty blatant rip-offs from the story of Noah); I focused later on the equally impossible tale of Lehi and his sons sailing from Arabia in 600 B.C. No maritime compass, no transoceanic voyage...
You want more evidence of the absurdity of it all? Glenn Beck believes it...
A Romney press conference reminds me of Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us when he was fielding questions from the reporters.
At least Romney holds press conferences; with all that is going wrong in the US and abroad, our current President hasn't;t held one in 6 months now, and will be sure to duck holding one before Election Day, November 6th, as he is running scared, and with his failed record and record of gaffes, I can certainly see why, Rainey..
You need to go back to the Faux Snooze echo chamber, where you will be among your equals in ignorance and Republicon apologists. We have heard your mantras before, and we will continue to insist on a progressive society for everyone, not just the well-off. Please continue to spout your Randian philosophies where they will be truly appreciated. Thanks.
Forward fool, and to what? I much prefer CNN to either MSNBC or Fox News, and that is far from being my only sources of information to keep my education and life experience current, especially my past career as a professional service provider in health care, guitran.