Plouffe: Romney is 'The Godfather of Our Healthcare Plan'

White House Adviser David Plouffe defended President Obama’s healthcare reform law as it heads to the Supreme Court this week, saying that a decade from now most Americans will embrace it.

“We are confident in the constitutionality of the health care law,” Plouffe said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “I guarantee this: by the end of this decade we are going to be glad that the Republicans called it Obamacare… It’s going to be very successful.”

But just as quickly as he defended the law, he gave Republican candidate Mitt Romney credit for taking the first step by requiring healthcare coverage as governor in Massachusetts.

“Mitt Romney is the godfather of our healthcare plan… It’s a model that was utilized,” Plouffe said. He added that if Romney wins, “we are going to have a big fight over health care again.”

Plouffe’s comments are not necessarily a compliment. The association with Obama’s health care plan is a liability for Romney, who has been attacked by his rivals on the issue. Romney has promised to repeal the law if elected.

"David Plouffe is the Rumpelstiltskin of Obamacare – trying to spin hay into gold but coming up short,” wrote Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson, in an email. “Mitt Romney will repeal Obamacare because it raises taxes, increases spending and represents a federal government power grab that violates the rights of states to pursue their own health care solutions. It is bad policy and bad law and when Mitt Romney is president we will say good riddance to it." 

Plouffe said that negativity in the presidential race, with Romney criticizing Obama’s handling of Iraq and Afghanistan, has been hurtful to the public discourse and that that sentiment cannot be erased as easily as an Etch A Sketch.

“This is going to be a very close race… That being said he’s done great damage to us… He’s done great damage… to himself.”

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