Pawlenty says his presidential aspirations include health care repeal

Gov. Tim Pawlenty told CNN’s Candy Crowley on Sunday that if he runs for president, he will campaign on repealing health care reform. But despite his public protestations about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Pawlenty administration has quietly taken advantage of many of the new law’s provisions. Pawlenty added that he hasn’t decided on whether he will be a presidential contender in 2012 and that he doesn’t pay attention to polling which has him at the bottom in most 2012 match-ups.

Pawlenty responded to a letter that Rep. John Boehner sent to Republican governors asking them to help House Republicans stop the implementation of health care reform.

“I think ‘Obamacare’ is one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the modern history of the country,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can in Minnesota to stop, delay or avoid its implementation in my state, including signing an executive order saying we’re not going to participate unless required by law or approved by me.”

He continued, “We’ve been given opportunities to early enroll in that program and take advantage of other aspects of it. We declined, and I hope between now and 2014 when it’s fully kicked in that as many states as possible do what they can to reel that program back, or that the new Republican Congress, better yet, can repeal it, because it’s dragging stuff into Washington, D.C., creating a new bureaucracy, spending a new — a lot of new money that they don’t have, isn’t going to work. We should have market-based solutions.”

But as left-leaning blog ThinkProgress notes, Pawlenty has accepted several provisions of health care reform.

Minnesota’s Management and Budget Office recently applied for money in the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, “a $5 billion program that helps pay for the insurance costs of retirees between the ages of 55 and 64,” and the state has received $11.1 million in Affordable Care Act grants. Those are in addition to money that Pawlenty accepted for the state’s Medicaid program, $263 million in federal funds.

Host Crowley asked Pawlenty if he was going to run for president and what he thought of polls that show him trailing most other presidential contenders.

“Well, I don’t know for sure what I’m going to do after I’m done being governor, Candy,” he said. “I’ll decide that early next year. And as to the poll, you know, a lot of those early polls, whether it’s me running or somebody else, reflect familiarity, name ID, and I — you know, you see front-runners in the past with similar situations that change over time.”

He added, “So these early polls I don’t think mean much for me or any other potential candidates, especially if you haven’t run before and aren’t well-known.”

Crowley followed up, “And if I could get just a yes or no from you, would repealing health care reform be a major part of your platform, should you run?”

Pawlenty responded, “Yes, I think having health solutions dragged into Washington, D.C., top-down command-and-control, bureaucratically run entitlement programs that they can’t afford are a bad idea. I like markets, I like people being in charge of decisions, not the federal bureaucracy.”