The Massachusetts healthcare law passed by Mitt Romney (R) as governor is a “huge problem,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Thursday of his top competitor for the GOP presidential nomination.
Perry assailed the state healthcare law for its similarities to President Obama’s nationwide healthcare reform law, which the Texan called a “total debacle.”
“I think Mitt is finally recognizing that the Massachusetts healthcare plan he passed is a huge problem for him,” Perry said on conservative talker Laura Ingraham’s radio show. “It was not almost perfect.”
The healthcare law has been seen as one of Romney’s biggest potential political liabilities, one he tried to put behind him with a May speech in Ann Arbor, where he embraced the plan, including its individual mandate — the requirement that individuals buy insurance, a key feature in common with Obama’s law.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) sought to turn it into a cudgel against Romney, coining the phrase “ObamneyCare” to tether the two plans together.