Mitt Romney's Dubious Claim That he "Authored" the New Massachusetts Health Care Bill
Reported by Melanie - April 12, 2006
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was a guest today (April 12, 2006) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto. Cavuto immediately identified Romney as a potential Republican presidential candidate and introduced him over video of Romney signing a "sweeping" new health care bill. In the clip Fox aired, Ted Kennedy was shown standing behind the chair Romney sat in. Cavuto said the "money shot" was seeing Kennedy and Romney together. Romney responded:
As one of my sons said, Ted Kennedy supporting a bill which I authored, that's gonna be a cure to global warming because hell has frozen over.
Emphasis added.
Comment: I searched the Internet high and low but couldn't find anything confirming that Romney authored this bill, but I did find a lot of info suggesting he didn't. I don't know enough to comment beyond that but my gut feeling is that we might have another case here of a Republican taking credit for work done by Democrats, like Bush did when he claimed that creating the Department of Homeland Security was his idea, when in fact it was first proposed by Democrats (and he opposed it).
UPDATE - 9:03 p.m. EDT: Thanks to reader Jorge, see this Newsweek article. It says:
The jerry-built bill, which owes much to Democratic leaders in the legislature...
