Jim Martin of 60 Plus: “Fixing healthcare starts with the transparency and openness that candidate Obama promised, but President Obama discarded.”

(Alexandria, Virginia) – GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney earned kudos today from the 60 Plus Association, the nation’s largest conservative seniors advocacy group with over 7.2 million senior supporters, for his consistent pledge to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law, and take the nation down a new path of healthcare reform that offers openness and a national discussion that the President failed to deliver.

Said Chairman Jim Martin, “Mitt Romney is sounding all the right notes on healthcare reform, and understands that the President’s overhaul made things worse, not better for tens of millions of seniors and their families. Candidate Obama promised town halls on C-SPAN with doctors and healthcare professionals, so Americans could observe and weigh-in on the process of reforming our system.  Today millions are still asking whatever happened to the C-SPAN town halls, Mr. President?

“At the very beginning of the Hippocratic Oath there is a pledge that the physician will ‘do no harm,’ but as the majority of Americans know, the new reform begins with harm and continues doing harm well into the future.  This is probably why all of the President’s friends, including the AARP, asked for and received a waiver from it, and why no member of the House or Senate who actually voted for the bill will count on it as their primary source of care.

“Mitt Romney understands you can’t fix healthcare by writing a 2,700 page bill in the back rooms of Congress, with lobbyists, insurance executives and the AARP ghostwriting massive clauses in the legislation.  Real reform begins by holding town hall meetings and getting input from Americans across the nation on how best to give them the options they need to assured their care.  This is something President Obama failed to do after candidate Obama in 2008 promised the nation transparency and an open national discussion prior to putting any legislation on the table.

“Seniors across the nation are offering a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Mitt Romney for his pledge to do what President Obama promised back in 2008.  It’s time politics and the special interests took a back seat to bi-partisanship and transparency to pass real healthcare reform that will preserve what is best about our system and quality of care, while addressing the glaring issues millions of Americans still face.”

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