It wasn’t all jokes on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” Tuesday, where Mitt Romney defended his opposition to health care reform. Leno asked about the law’s provision that people can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. (Transcript via Greg Sargent):
LENO: So you would make the law stand for children and people with preexisting conditions.
ROMNEY: People with preexisting conditions — as long as they’ve been insured before, they’re going to continue to have insurance.
LENO: Suppose they were never insured?
ROMNEY: Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered.’
LENO: I know guys at work in the auto industry, and they’re just not covered…they’ve just never been able to get insurance. And then they get to be 30, 35, and were never able to get insurance before. Now they have it. That seems like a good thing.
ROMNEY: We’ll look at a circumstance where someone was ill, and hasn’t been insured so far. But people who have had the chance to be insured — if you’re working in an auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure all their employees — you look at the circumstances that exist. But people who have done their best to get insured, are going to be able to be covered. But you don’t want everyone saying, `I’m going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.’ That doesn’t make sense. But you have to find rules that get people in that are playing by the rules.
The two also discussed Romney’s tax-policy proposals, his comments about Russia as a “geopolitical foe” and Afghanistan.
The two did joke as well, including when Romney proposed picking David Letterman as his running mate to relieve Leno of his biggest late-night competition. Romney was also asked to name a word associated with other potential VP picks. His answers: Chris Christie: “indomitable;” Marco Rubio: “American Dream;” Rick Santorum: “press secretary.”
