Mitt Romney to Obama on Health Care: ‘Why Didn’t You Call Me?’

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images(LAS VEGAS) -- All-but-declared GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney shot back at President Obama on Saturday for his increasingly frequent words of praise for the health care reform law Romney put in place as governor of Massachusetts.

“He does me the great favor of saying that I was the inspiration for his plan,” Romney said at a speech in Las Vegas. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you ask what was wrong? Why didn’t you ask if this was an experiment, what worked and what didn’t?”

He continued, “And I’d have told him, ‘what you’re doing, Mr. President, is going to bankrupt us.' We can’t spend more money.”

As he prepares to launch a bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Romney has walked a fine line on the issue of health care, defending the law he signed in Massachusetts, but emphasizing that, if elected, he would do away with the national reforms that represent a signature achievement of the Obama administration.

On his first day in office, Romney said he would “grant a waiver for all 50 states on Obamacare and then go work to get it repealed.”

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