Mitt Romney said a universal health care plan he approved when he was governor of Massachusetts was far different from one proposed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In a telephone interview this week, Romney said the two main distinctions were that Schwarzenegger's included an employer mandate and would have increased costs for the state, whereas his Massachusetts plan did not. Schwarzenegger, who has disputed that his plan would increase state costs, watched his plan get killed Monday by the state Senate.
Romney said that as president, he would prod states to extend coverage to uninsured residents but allow them to develop their own programs.
"What I would do as president is give states both incentives as well as penalties in an effort to get every state to get its citizens insured," Romney said. "I would not tell states how to do it, but if they want to see our (Massachusetts) model, they can use that one. Other states are looking at other models, but I believe it’s important to get everyone insured. My preference is to do it without raising taxes and without employer mandates."
On another of Schwarzenegger's defining issues, Romney said he believes states should be able to set their own environmental policy "unless it interferes with interstate commerce, of course, and that would be a different matter."
Romney said he thinks states should be allowed to set their own policy but should realize that they have to live with the economic consequences.
"If a state goes too far, it will lose jobs and in the area of greenhouse gas caps and cap and trade programs, that it is wise to work on a global basis," Romney said. "States or nations that put in place caps without considering global caps are making a mistake."
Though Romney suggested during Wednesday's debate that he believed California and 19 other states should be able to set their own standards for tailpipe emissions, his campaign released a statement later this week stating that carbon dioxide should be regulated federally, according to the Detroit Free Press.
"When Michigan makes the same cars and trucks regardless of whether they are bound for California, Vermont or (even) Massachusetts, it makes more sense to have one set of federal rules to address CO2 emissions from vehicles rather than a patchwork of different state regulations," Romney said in the statement.
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