Health policy positions offered by Romney, Santorum and Paul draw attention

In the midst of the GOP presidential primaries, Mitt Romney's comments about the safety net trigger strong reactions, while Rick Santorum delivers a speech in Colorado on health policy themes, and The Washington Post fact checks Ron Paul's comments about life before Medicare and Medicaid.

The Associated Press: Romney: Not Focused On Poor, They Have Safety Net
Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, confident after his Florida primary victory, ended up inviting criticism Wednesday when he said he's "not concerned about the very poor" because they have an "ample safety net..." "We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor," Romney said (Hunt, 2/1).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Santorum Leans Into Harsh Criticism Of His GOP Rivals As He Eyes Upcoming Contests For Rebound
Sharpening his criticism, Rick Santorum on Wednesday laid into Mitt Romney's health care overhaul in Massachusetts and Newt Gingrich's shifting policy positions as he sought to deny either rival the Republican presidential nomination (2/1).

National Journal: Santorum Doles Out Tough Medicine On Drug Costs
As Rick Santorum sought on Wednesday to spread his message on health care to Coloradans, he gave an answer to a question from the audience that some may find a hard pill to swallow. A young boy asked the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania what he would do to keep prescription drugs affordable. Another woman in the audience chimed in that she couldn't afford her $900-a-month prescription. Santorum compared the costs to buying an iPad. "People have no problem going out and buying an iPad for $900," he said. "But paying $200 for a drug they have a problem with -- that keeps you alive. Why? Because you've been conditioned in thinking health care is something you should get and not have to pay for" (Kelty, 2/1).

CNN: Santorum Defends Drug Companies In Health Care Speech
In what his campaign billed as a "major speech on health care," Rick Santorum found himself Wednesday defending a profit-driven health care system to a woman who said her son requires expensive medication to stay alive. The former Pennsylvania senator also detailed the deficiencies he sees in his rivals' health insurance records (Aigner-Treworgy, 2/1).

The Washington Post: The Fact Checker: Ron Paul's Claims About Life Without Medicare And Medicaid
The libertarian congressman suggested people should embrace personal responsibility, and he described Blitzer's hypothetical as implausible, since hospitals don't turn people away for lack of money or insurance coverage. Paul has said repeatedly that life before Medicare and Medicaid wasn't so bad. We wondered about the state of health care for the elderly and poor just before those social programs took effect in the mid 1960s. Let's take a tour down memory lane (Hicks, 2/1).