In the course of defending his health care law at the first presidential debate Wednesday night in Denver, President Obama gave Mitt Romney’s nearly identical Massachusetts health care plan a big bear hug.
“[T]he irony is we have seen this model work well in Massachusetts,” Obama said. “Governor Romney did a good thing working with Democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the identical model. As a consequence people are covered there. It has not destroyed jobs. As a consequence we have a system where we have the opportunity to start bringing down costs instead of leaving millions of people out in the cold.”
Romney responded by, more aggressively than usual, defending his plan — but on the basis of the fact that it passed with more bipartisan support than Obama’s law.
“I like the way we did it in Massachusetts,” Romney said. “I like the way we had Republicans and Democrats come together and work together. What you did was push through a plan without a single Republican vote.”
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