Barack Obama’s Broken Health Care Promises

… AND WHY MITT ROMNEY COULDN’T EXPLOIT THEM

There’s something missing from the vast majority of “post mortem” discussions that have sought to explain GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s surprising loss to Barack Obama last month.

Do you know what it is?  Here’s a hint …

While the mainstream media has predictably focused on the GOP’s regional and demographic challenges, Romney’s inability to effectively take the health care fight to Obama represents a critical missed opportunity – and one of the main reasons he’s spending these long December nights crying on a golden pillow as opposed to interviewing cabinet nominees (you know … chosen from binders full of women).

Anyway, while percentages have varied (as high as 63 percent, as low as 50 percent according to Rasmussen), a majority of Americans have opposed Obama’s socialized medicine plan from the moment it become law in March 2010.  They oppose it intensely, too – with 80 percent of them registering “strong” opposition to the law.

Meanwhile the percentage of those who support Obamacare is much lower (as high as 44 percent, as low as 32 percent).

Obviously Romney promised that he would “act to repeal Obamacare” (well, aside from the parts of the legislation he said he liked).  He had no choice but to pay lip service to the pro-repeal movement.

But he could never pursue the issue because Obama basically used Romney’s plan as the blueprint for his own proposal.  And Romney could never attack the most insidious components of Obamacare because he was already on the record supporting them.

As a result, Romney was unable to substantively engage on the mother of all campaign issues … just as we predicted.

Make no mistake: Obama was exceedingly vulnerable on his socialized medicine law – with respect to its impositions on both our liberties and our wallets.  In fact Obama’s failed health care promises represented a golden opportunity for Romney to exploit – yet he never did.

“In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year,” Obama said in June 2008 during a campaign stop in West Virginia. “We won’t do all this twenty years from now, or ten years from now.  We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.”

Really? Wow …

So … has that happened?

Of course not.  According to the latest data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average family with an employer-provided plan has seen its premiums rise by $2,400 under Obama.  Additional premium increases are projected for 2013 – all while massive tax hikes associated with Obamacare’s entitlement expansion are set to kick in.

Why didn’t Romney pounce on this bread-and-butter pocketbook issue?

Again … he couldn’t.  Which begs the question: Why did “Republicans” nominate this guy in the first place?

The mainstream media narrative on the 2012 election is that Mitt Romney lost because he was preaching “hard ass” ideology to a diminishing (white) choir.  The reality?

He lost because he was simply unable to deliver what should have been a knockout punch.

***