Erik Jacobs for The New York TimesGov. Deval Patrick, center right, with Jack Connors, the head of Partners HealthCare System, on Wednesday in Boston during an event highlighting Massachusetts’ health care overhaul.
BOSTON — Former Gov. Mitt Romney, needless to say, did not attend. But at a sixth-anniversary celebration of Massachusetts’ landmark health care law on Wednesday, Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, pointedly said his predecessor should be proud of the law, which has been a hot potato for Mr. Romney on the Republican presidential campaign trail.
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On April 12, 2006, Mitt Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, signed a health care bill into law, with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, center, and Tim Murphy, the state health secretary. “I know, or at least I sense, that he’s personally proud of it,” Mr. Patrick said, pointing out that Mr. Romney’s official portrait in the State House depicts him sitting at a desk with a document stamped with a medical symbol, meant to represent the health care legislation. Mr. Patrick, a co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election campaign and a vocal proponent of Mr. Obama’s national health care overhaul, stressed that Mr. Romney had embraced the piece of the Massachusetts law, known as the individual mandate, requiring most residents to get health insurance. The Supreme Court is weighing whether a similar component of Mr. Obama’s law is constitutional, and if not, whether the entire law must be overturned. On Thursday — the actual anniversary of Mr. Romney’s signing of the Massachusetts law — the state’s Democratic Party will hold a “birthday party” for it, complete with a cake and punch. “It’s hard to believe that it was only six years ago that then-Governor Romney shared the president’s position that we should take on rising health care costs and provide affordable, accessible health care to all Americans,” John Walsh, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said in a statement. Mr. Romney opposes Mr. Obama’s health care law, saying the federal government should not prescribe such a sweeping measure for all states. But Mr. Romney has defended the law he signed here as appropriate for Massachusetts. Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, described the anniversary celebrations as “business as usual from Deval Patrick and the Beacon Hill machine.” Mr. Patrick — speaking at Faneuil Hall here, where Mr. Romney signed the health care bill into law on April 12, 2006 — said he wanted to combat inevitable criticism leading up to the presidential election by highlighting the law’s success. “Everybody around here who has participated in creating and sustaining the success of this program,” Mr. Patrick said, “whether we support or not the incumbent president, is not going to stand by and let it be intentionally misrepresented.”
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