Romney fires back at conservative critics

BELMONT, Mass., May 13 (UPI) -- Ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, responding Friday to conservative critics, again defended his current health proposal and criticized U.S. healthcare reform.

Romney responded to editorial criticism in The Wall Street Journal with a letter to the editor calling "ObamaCare" -- the name opponents use to refer to the Affordable Care Act -- takes the nation down the wrong path. The Journal, whose editorial pages are a conservative sounding board, suggested President Obama is correct when he says his health plan is modeled on the one Romney introduced in Massachusetts.

But Romney said what's right for one state isn't necessary right for the entire country.

"A one-size-fits-all plan that raises taxes and ignores the very real differences between states is the wrong course for our nation," he wrote.

While Romney has not formally declared he is a presidential candidate, he is widely regarded as a top contender for the Republican nomination. He addressed the healthcare issue Thursday in a speech in Ann Arbor, Mich.

In his letter to the Journal, Romney defended an individual mandate in Massachusetts to buy health insurance, saying the state was spending $1 billion a year treating the uninsured.

The Journal said Romney's current proposal to start taxing employer-paid health insurance is "sensible" but that it contradicts his Massachusetts plan and its "national reprise."

"These are unbridgeable policy and philosophical differences, though Mr. Romney is nonetheless trying to leap over them like Evel Knievel heading for the Snake River Canyon," the Journal said.