Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that his health care reform law in Massachusetts included birth control in insurance coverage but he opposed it in President Barack Obama's law because only states should be able to grant those rights to women.
On Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Romney that Massachusetts' so-called Romneycare law included the type of birth control mandate that was now being opposed in the United States Supreme Court by Little Sisters of the Poor and other Catholic groups. But Romney's law differed from the Affordable Care in that it did not even offer a waiver for those non-profit organizations seeking an exemption.
"This was not an issue in our state," Romney explained. "We didn't have the Catholic church come to us and say, 'Look, we've got a problem here with the type of legislation you've put in place.' But frankly, Chris, whatever mistakes that were made in Massachusetts, those are mistakes that can be dealt with at the state level."
"That's why it was at the heart of my plan for health care in America -- and I think the heart of the Republican plan for health care in replacing Obamacare -- is to say, look, let's let states put in place their own plans that make sense for their people," he added. "We can have federal guidelines saying you need to get people covered, you need to deal with pre-existing conditions."
"But don't have the federal government take over health care, tell the American people precisely what type of coverage they have to have -- have the federal government telling doctors what kinds of procedures are authorized and not. That is just not the way to go. Let states and individuals have the powers that the Constitution intended them to have."
