For the second day in a row, Gov. Tim Pawlenty this morning ripped into the Obama administration's plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.
On his weekly radio show, Pawlenty called the plan "terribly flawed," adding, "we need reform, but this is headed in the wrong direction."
Instead of expanding bureaucracies, both within the government and the health care industry, Pawlenty said the primary goal should be to "get consumers in charge."
He was repeating, in somewhat milder words, what he said in an interview Thursday on Fox News, when he called President Obama's proposal a "joke."
"This whole health care proposal by president Obama is really quite a joke on a number of levels," Pawlenty said. "I think he is scamming the American people. Even if you believe that it is only going to tax people over $1 million, what is known to happen is that is only going to cover about 25 percent of the total cost. The rest will be paid for by saving waste, fraud, and abuse. If you believe that, then I've got some January tee time in northern Minnesota."
Expanding his critique to include Democratic leaders in Congress, he said they're trying to "save costs by expanding programs that are already broke and defunct."
Both the DFL and the National Democratic Committee took aim at Pawlenty's comments, in light of the fact that he has cut health benefits to poor Minnesota to partly close the state's budget gap. "The Joke is on US," the DFL's news release was headlined.
Pawlenty also took aim today at the Massachusetts health care cost control plan, one of the signature issues of former Gov. Mitt Romney.
"I don't like Massachusetts as a model," he said. "That program has tripled in cost in the last 36 months. The costs are essentially out of control."
Pawlenty and Romney are widely seen as likely presidential candidates in 2012.
