Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Harry Reid: Mitt Romney’s position on health care ‘absurd’

On the evening of the Affordable Care Act’s two-year anniversary, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., took Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to task for opposing the landmark health care law.

On a conference call for President Obama’s re-election campaign, Reid criticized Romney for saying he would “get rid” of Planned Parenthood and for opposing mandated insurance coverage of contraception.

“I can’t make anything up so absurd as that,” Reid said. “What he said is women are on their own, they should shop around for life-saving breast cancer and cervical cancer screening.”

During a campaign stop in Peoria, Ill., last week, Romney said voters should “vote for the other guy” if they want “free stuff,” adding that women could go elsewhere for health care rather than expecting the government to keep funding Planned Parenthood, according to the Associated Press.

As the rhetoric surrounding the two-year anniversary of the law's passage intensifies, Republicans argue the health care law has not lowered medical and insurance costs as Democrats promised.

“President Obama promised that his health care plan would help America’s families by decreasing premiums and costs, but instead we got the massive Obamacare law that is increasing costs for families, increasing our nation’s debt and making it harder for job creators to stay in business,” Darren Littell, Nevada spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said.

Democrats have for weeks been promoting the more popular elements of the health care law, including requiring insurance companies to cover children with pre-existing conditions, allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plan longer and providing prescription drug assistance to senior citizens.

The health care law faces a key hurdle on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on its constitutionality.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said during a telephone town hall meeting that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the case because of her prior job as solicitor general.

Reid disagreed. Reid also complimented Gov. Brian Sandoval for implementing the health care law in Nevada despite his philosophical objection to the legislation.

“I admire Gov. Sandoval for doing that,” he said. “Some people around the country are such ideologues they just ignored that, and it’s not fair to the people. So, I applaud Gov. Sandoval for going ahead and looking at this.”

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