Romney says health law isn't 'all bad'

In Sunday news appearances, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that if elected, he would dismantle the health care law, but retain some of the more popular provisions, including coverage of pre-existing conditions for those who had had continuous health insurance.

The Washington Post: Romney Says He Would Keep Some Parts Of Obama's Health-Care Law
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says that while he intends to dismantle the Obama administration's health-care law if elected, he will retain several key provisions, including coverage for preexisting conditions. In an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Romney said his health-care overhaul will also allow families to cover adult children with their policies through age 26 and include access to coverage for unemployed people seeking insurance. Both are part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by Obama in 2010 (Turque, 9/9).

Politico: Romney Says He Likes Some Parts Of Obamacare
Mitt Romney has vowed to repeal and replace the new health care law, but that doesn't mean he hates all of it. In an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Republican presidential nominee said his replacement health care plan would include a way for people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance, and also allow children to be covered "up to whatever age they might like." Providing coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parents' health care plan until the age of 26 are among the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Kim, 9/9).

Bloomberg: Romney Says He Would Keep Parts Of Obama Health Care Law
Republican Mitt Romney said he would keep parts of President Barack Obama's health care law, shifting his focus to independent voters as polls showed the president gained support after the Democratic convention. Both candidates focused on health care yesterday as Obama wrapped up a two-day bus tour across the swing state of Florida by attacking Romney's proposal to change Medicare. Romney, speaking in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he would replace Obama's health care law with his own plan while keeping some popular provisions including coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (Lerer and Talev, 9/10).

The Boston Globe: Romney Says He Would Keep Parts Of Obama Health Care Law
Mitt Romney has called for wholesale repeal of President Obama's national health care law, but in a TV interview that aired Sunday he said he is "not getting rid of all of health care reform." In a two-part interview, filmed Friday aboard his campaign bus and Saturday at his Boston headquarters, Romney sought to fend off a charge by Obama's reelection campaign that repealing the 2010 health care law would leave young adults and people with preexisting health conditions without insurance (Borchers, 9/9). 

ABC News: Mitt Romney 'Not Getting Rid of All of Health Care Reform'
Mitt Romney raised some eyebrows today when he said, "I'm not getting rid of all of healthcare reform." That sounded quite different from the mantra he has repeated for months, that he would "repeal Obamacare." Though the Romney campaign quickly said there has been no change in position, it's clear that despite the rhetoric, the Republican nominee would keep some of the popular elements of President Obama's healthcare reform act (Kerley, 9/9).

Also during his weekend television appearances, Romney also said the 'sequester deal' which includes a number of automatic cuts in military spending is a mistake -

The New York Times: Romney, Easing, Says Health Law Isn't All Bad
Adopting a new tone, Mitt Romney on Sunday said he would retain elements of President Obama's health care overhaul, blamed Republicans as much as Democrats for the "mistake" of agreeing to automatic cuts in military spending and said Mr. Obama's national security strategy had made America in "some ways safer" (Barbaro, 9/9).

Politico: Romney Slams Sequester Deal As A 'Big Mistake'
Mitt Romney is slamming the 2011 deal that ended the protracted congressional fight to raise the debt limit – a vote that his own vice presidential pick backed. "That's a big mistake," the Republican presidential nominee said of the agreement in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it." The Budget Control Act raised the debt ceiling in exchange for more than $2 trillion in federal budget cuts. The first round of about $917 billion has been enacted, but a so-called supercommittee failed to find an additional $1.2 trillion in deficit-reduction measures. That set in motion a round of automatic, across-the-board cuts to domestic and defense programs called a sequester that will go into effect Jan. 2 unless Congress passes legislation to avoid it (Kim, 9/9).

Meanwhile, Romney continues to face difficulties in the battleground states -

The Wall Street Journal: Romney Struggles To Gain Traction In Battlegrounds
With two months to Election Day, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney faces the disconcerting reality that he isn't winning most of the states he would need to beat President Barack Obama. … Mr. Obama in Florida over the weekend repeated his stipulation that any new deficit-reduction deal include tax increases and argued that seniors would pay more for their health care under the Medicare plan offered by Mr. Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan. He also critiqued Mr. Romney's plan for not being specific about how it would balance the budget (Murray and Meckler, 9/9).