Edwards bashes Romney health care plan

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney walks off the stage after speaking to the Florida Medical Association about his health care plan.
(Lynne Sladky/Associated Press)

Even as Mitt Romney is laying out his health care plan at this hour to Florida doctors, Democrat John Edwards wasted no time bashing it.

"Mitt Romney's cure is worse than the disease," Edwards said in a statement. "Not surprisingly, he's unwilling to take on the big insurance and drug companies. As a result, it will make a dysfunctional health care system even worse."

Romney's plan includes some elements of the much-publicized Massachusetts health care reform, which took effect in July and which is designed to lower costs and offer coverage to all residents.

But, as the Globe and other newspapers reported today, it is also significantly different, with more of a state-by-state approach. For instance, Romney's proposal would not penalize anyone for failing to buy insurance, nor would it sanction businesses that do not provide it for their employees. Individual states could set such rules, but the federal government would not mandate them.

Edwards, who claims to have the only health care plan that would cover all the estimated 47 million uninsured Americans, slapped Romney for not proposing all the major features of the Massachusetts plan for national health care reform.

"If universal health care was good enough for Massachusetts, why isn't it good enough for the rest of the country?"

In advance of Romney's speech to the Florida Medical Association, his campaign released an op-ed piece from his former health and human services secretary that praised the Massachusetts plan. "Massachusetts is leading the way in the effort to provide all citizens the opportunity to purchase affordable health insurance. This landmark achievement is due in no small part to Governor Mitt Romney and his strong leadership, working in cooperation with the legislature," Tim Murphy says in the piece, posted on the website townhall.com.