Mitt Romney: Obama 'fundamentally dishonest' about health insurance

Mitt Romney has pretty much kept quiet after losing in 2012. But on 'Meet the Press,' he unloaded on 'Obamacare,' which he continues to insist is nothing like 'Romneycare' in Massachusetts.

Mitt Romney hasn't had a lot to say since his defeat in the presidential election last year. It must be busy work organizing those expensive residences - the Salt Lake Tribune says a new home being built in Utah will make it five - he and his wife Ann have in their post-political life.

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Brad Knickerbocker

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But he unloaded on NBC's ' Meet the Press' Sunday - particularly on health care insurance programs, which he essentially said President Obama is lying about.

'Perhaps the most important lesson the president, I think, failed to learn was, you have to tell the American people the truth,' Mr. Romney said. 'And when he told the American people that you could keep your health insurance if you wanted to keep that plan, period, he said that time and again, he wasn't telling the truth. And I think that fundamental dishonesty has really put in peril the whole foundation of his second term.'

'Fundamental dishonesty' - not just being wrong but lying and then repeating the lie - is a hard charge, even for professional politicians. (One is reminded of the evil Francis Urquhart's best-known quote in the BBC series 'House of Cards:' 'You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment.')

Obama has had to backtrack (or 'clarify,' in Washington parlance) on his claim that all Americans could keep their current health care plan if they so choose under the Affordable Care Act. Next to the devastating 'glitches' in the HealthCare.gov sign-up site, that's provided the juiciest target for Republicans wanting to 'repeal and replace' - 'replace' with what, nobody is saying - Obamacare.

'Obamacare barely made it through Washington, as you know,' Romney said. 'And there is no question in my mind but had the president been truthful and told the American people that millions would lose their insurance and millions more would see their premiums skyrocket, had he told them that at the time it was going through Washington, there would have been such a huge cry against it, it would not have passed.'

It's a sore point for the former Massachusetts governor, whose own state plan was cited as a model for the Affordable Care Act - including the individual mandate both plans include.