In the little more than a week since the Supreme Court decided to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney has yet to convincingly use the ruling to build support for his campaign.

He has argued during his campaign that an individual mandate is wrong for the country. In Massachusetts, he supported it because it suited the state. Romney has used this argument and others throughout the past week, but if he plans to win over voters, he’ll need to advance beyond the tired, empty arguments already employed by many other conservatives.

Romney reacted to the decision by continuing his vows to repeal “Obamacare.” He called it “bad medicine” and “bad policy” on his campaign website. He wrote, “We cannot afford Barack Obama’s on-the-job learning, big government proposals, and irresponsible spending.” He called the law a “government takeover of healthcare.” He’s stuck using the same arguments leveled against Obama and the law since it was first passed.

If he thinks it’s a bad plan, he will need to come out and publicly defend the law he passed in Massachusetts. The two laws are, at the core, identical.

In Massachusetts, residents are obligated to buy health insurance. Those who cannot afford an insurance plan can receive subsidized insurance. The same applies in the Affordable Care Act. The plan he now advocates for is one in which states “craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens,” according to his website.

Putting his plan in motion may be more difficult than he’d like the public to believe. Simply electing him will not cause the Affordable Care Act to vanish. Especially in a Congress that has been plagued by division, repealing the law will not be effortless. Returning control to the states may cause differences in the amount of individual coverage across the country. The Romney replacement is vague and leaves much in question.

The American public seems to want to stick with Obama’s plan, too. About 56 percent of respondents in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll say opponents should “stop their efforts to block the law and move on to other national problems.” Only 38 percent believe opponents should “continue trying to block the law from being implemented.” If Romney wants to run on repealing Obamacare, he will be running against public sentiment.

There’s also a problem with the way Romney’s plan provides coverage. It is not designed to cover all Americans. He just wants states to be in control. The plan will be unlikely to keep health care costs down unless all are required to buy health insurance. Insurance works by spreading around risk.

By allowing some to not buy insurance — typically the younger and healthier individuals like college students — there’s more risk to insure. Insurance companies favored Obama’s plan because risk would be minimized. It’s not clear how Romney’s plan would keep costs down. Romney’s idea to foster competitiveness only goes so far.

A disagreement about the role of government in health care is also at play. Obama believes health care is a right the government should help protect, but Romney does not believe the federal government can force health care upon the individual.

Again, Obama has public sentiment on his side. About 74 percent of Americans polled in a 2009 CBS and New York Times poll support a government-sponsored health care plan, and 64 percent of Americans believe government should guarantee health insurance for all.

Romney needs to take the public’s opinions into account if he is to effectively argue against Obama’s health care law. He needs to elaborate on his own plans for reform, rather than use vague hints. Attacks against the Obama plan are only useful if Romney proves his plan is better for the public.

Advocating for “smaller government” for the sake of smaller government is pointless. Instead, smaller government must be shown to benefit the common good.


Harmen Rockler is a senior newspaper journalism and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at horockle@syr.edu.

Published on July 8, 2012 at 2:17 pm