It Begins: CNN Rushes to Point Out Romney Once Liked 'Healthcare Mandates'

Can you say 10th Amendment? CNN doesn’t seem to be able to.

It was practically only hours after the Supreme Court issued its historic–and odious — decision to give Obamacare its stamp of approval that CNN rushed to tell readers that Romney, too, once approved of a healthcare mandate. This narrative, we know, will be one the Old Media tries to use to beat Romney down and give Obama his second term.

“As it turns out,” CNN trumpets, “the tax penalty in the president’s health care law was modeled after the reform plan passed in Massachusetts under then governor Mitt Romney.”

Of course, this is basically true, so fair point. But CNN falls down on the job by not explaining what Mitt Romney has been saying about his Massachusetts healthcare mandates. Romney has repeatedly said that his plan was a state-based plan but one he does not think would work on a federal level.

At the end of its piece, CNN does bury a throw away line that slightly gives readers an idea of Romney’s current position, to be sure. At the end of the article, CNN says, “Since then, Romney has said repeatedly his plan was meant for Massachusetts only.”

This is short shrift for Romney’s position and does not explain it at all.

Romney has said far more than just that it was “meant for Massachusetts only.” He has in fact based his position on the 10th Amendment, a truly American principle.

Take Romney’s response to this mandate question during the late GOP debates (this from December).

He stands firm on the point that he employed the truly American idea of 10th Amendment experimentation. He stands on the concept that the states are the laboratory of freedom, that the states should have as much leeway as possible to come up with their own solutions and plans for their own problems. He gave it a try to solve the healthcare problem in Massachusetts. But those solutions he tried, he says, he does not want the federal government to try. That is his position.

Further he has committed 100 percent to repealing Obamacare.

Now, what ever you think of Romney’s past or the veracity of his current position(s), CNN does ill service to its readers to have completely ignored Romney’s full position on the issue and to just give him a less than informative, throw away line in explanation.

Be prepared for this to be one of the big narratives the Old Media uses against Romney. Maybe he deserves it, but for sure he also deserves to have his full position relayed to the voters as well.