AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign released an internet video Monday that highlights changes to Mitt Romney’s book regarding his biggest liability with Republican primary voters: the health care reform law he signed while governor of Massachusetts.
In the original version of “No Apology,” which came out in 2010, Romney boasted that, “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country, and it can be done without letting government take over health care.”
The paperback version released a year later reads, “And it was done without the government taking over health care.”
“Oops, word deleted,” the video quips.
President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, long labeled “Obamacare” by its critics, three weeks after the book hit shelves in 2010. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans had begun to point out the similarities between Obama’s and Romney’s health laws. Romney’s spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, recently noted the national “climate” had changed between the two editions of “No Apology.”
On stage at the Republican debate in Orlando, Fla., Thursday, Perry said Romney originally wrote that the Massachusetts health care law “was exactly what the American people needed, to have that Romneycare given to them.” The attack is part of the Perry campaign’s strategy to paint Romney as someone who reverses course.
“Please don’t try and make me retreat from the words that I wrote in my book. I stand by what I wrote,” Romney responded on stage. “I believe in what I did. And I believe that the people of this country can read my book and see exactly what it is.”
Romney also wrote in the original edition that his “preference would be to let each state fashion its own program to meet the distinct needs of its citizens.” And when The Washington Post interviewed Romney about the subject in 2007 — before “No Apology” was published — Romney said, “instead of having the federal government give us one-size-fits-all, everybody-must-follow-the-same-plan, let states develop their own.”
To read more, go to The Wall Street Journal.