Romneycare Architect Blasts Romney

From the "No Shit, Sherlock" annals of GOP politics, M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber called Mitt Romney's loud noises about repealing the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act "largely political."

For the federal law, "Massachusetts absolutely was the model," Gruber said. "It would have been much harder if we didn't have a working example to show that it worked."
 ..."Romney likes to brag he did it without raising taxes, but he doesn't mention that the feds paid for half of it," Gruber said, referring to $400 million in unused Medicaid funds that Massachusetts had to spend or else return to Washington.

It also didn't hurt that in 2006, Massachusetts already had the lowest proportion of residents without health insurance of any state, 7.7 percent compared to 14.8 percent nationwide.
"It was cheaper because we had fewer people to cover," said Gruber, who is on the board of the state's health insurance purchasing exchange.
The exchange, along with the individual mandate and subsidies to low-income people who can't afford health insurance, are at the heart of both the Massachusetts and national plans -- another key similarity, Gruber said.
"The basic framework is identical," he said. "The details differ."

Mitt, just say "oops" and get out.