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The Spectacle Blog

RomneyCare Administrator Steps Down to Seek Job Working on ObamaCare

By Philip Klein on 4.15.10 @ 2:35PM

In a development that could have ramifications for the 2012 presidential race, Jon Kingsdale, the man who Mitt Romney appointed to help implement the Massachusetts health care plan, has stepped down. Though Kingsdale hasn't announced where he's moving to, a spokesman for his agency tells the Boston Globe that he will be "exploring opportunities to help with national health care reform."

What does this all have to do with 2012?

Well, Kingsdale was appointed by the Romney administration in 2006, and tasked with running the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, which operates the state exchange on which Massachusetts citizens can use government subsidies to purchase government-designed insurance plans. This is the same basic infrastructure that Democrats just created at the national level, and Obama himself has repeatedly tied the two plans together in the past few weeks.

"I keep on scratching my head and I say, boy, this Massachusetts thing, who designed that?" the president joked at a recent fundraiser.

As it is, Romney has struggled to draw meaningful distinctions between his plan and Obama's. But if Obama were to snap up Kingsdale to work on implementing the federal health care law, it would make Romney's task even more difficult. Imagine a debate in which Romney tries to attack the national health care law. Obama could respond, "Not only are the two plans quite similar, but I appointed the same man who Romney himself appointed to run the health care program he created in Massachusetts."

View all comments (14) | Leave a comment

Yuck! Romney?| 4.15.10 @ 3:39PM

No one needs two faced Romney in office.
No one needs pro enhanced torture Mitchell and Jessen backer in office.
it can be found on the blog below.

http://mittromney2012potus.blogspot.com/

Beware of Romney clones| 4.15.10 @ 3:41PM

Oh, oh, you wrote something negative about Mitt, you'll get fired too!

Soon, all there will be are Romney clones at all the news agencies.

B. Johnson| 4.15.10 @ 6:09PM

It's too bad that even people who work in the government system don't seem to understand the following. Given the Constitution's silence about healthcare, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate healthcare to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress.

So while state-run RomneyCare is legal under the Constitution, federal-run Obamacare is not. And corrupt Congress was wrong not to have used its Article V option to petition the constitutionally powerful states to ratify an amendment giving Congress the power to make Obamacare in the first place.

The bottom line is that voters have big messes to clean up in both federal and state governments in this year’s midterm elections.

Wally| 4.15.10 @ 7:34PM

RINO Romney is responsible for one of those messes; NO RINO ROMNEY EVER!

2012| 4.15.10 @ 10:28PM

Romneycare is better and this is more evidence of that.

NO RINO ROMNEY EVER!| 4.16.10 @ 6:33PM

Keep telling yourself that, Romneybot--RomneyCare is bankrupting Mass.

There's no difference between Obama and Romney--they're both big government goons.

Jim Hlavac| 4.15.10 @ 10:49PM

Romney is as Socialist (OK, Big Government) as Obama -- but masquerades as different -- it's like European Parliaments and their supposedly different parties -- like the Christian Socialists or The Socialist Christians -- the question comes down to which Socialist has the better personality -- if Romney is the Republican nominee I'd rather have Obama again, for he'll screw it up faster, thus bringing us to the Great Reckoning and Great Dismantling all the faster. I liken it to a band-aid -- Obama rips it off fast and Romney rips if off slow -- but the pain is the same intensity -- but ripping us off is the same too.

Groucho| 4.15.10 @ 11:14PM

Romney is just another social fascist communist who instigated a government takeover of health care.

Wally| 4.16.10 @ 6:37PM

You're right, that's why we don't want big government whores like Romney or Obama in office.

Larry C. Roberts, MD, MA| 4.16.10 @ 10:25AM

Romney is like flatus in a steam shower. You just can't get rid of the smell. The same could be said of half the Obama administration.

Wally| 4.16.10 @ 6:38PM

ALL of the Obama administration.

kala| 4.17.10 @ 2:25AM

Enjoy Niceville! I’ve been there a couple of times for work. They have a great public library.

sw12| 4.18.10 @ 10:03PM

Romney is a financial genius and turned the financially fledgling Olympics around in Salt Lake City in '92. Also, Romneycare is nothing what Romney had originally wanted in the first place; he had to compromise with left-winged legislators in a mostly democratic state in order to finally get something, but it wasn't at all what the original plan was meant to be. Obamacare, on the other hand, is the antithesis of Everything American!!!