Democrats troll Mitt Romney on health care

You won't hear a lot of Mitt Romney praise at this week's Democratic National Convention. But Massachusetts Democrats held a Tuesday event to herald one of Romney's key achievements as governor: health care reform.

Ooh, them cheeky Dems.

The panel discussion was called "Romneycare Works." Romneycare, of course, was the model for President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Romney has delicately attempted to simultaneously defend his own state law and criticize Obama's federal law; mostly, he tries to avoid talking about either of them.

"I had a number of members of the press, who were in Tampa (for the Republican convention), comment to me how remarkable it was that in four days of convention compressed to three, there was never a mention of Governor Romney's greatest achievement - which is the health care legislation in Massachusetts," said Jim Roosevelt, chief executive of Tufts Health Plan, to open the Tuesday discussion. Everybody laughed.

Roosevelt then introduced Governor Deval Patrick, an Obama ally. Patrick heaped on the praise.

"Governor Romney, I believe to his great credit - and I say that sincerely - working with a Democratic state legislature, with a Democratic United States Senator...came together to invent health care reform in Massachusetts," Patrick said.

In closing, Patrick said, "It's done a lot of good for a lot of good people. There's no doubt in my mind that if the Affordable Care Act, based, as you know, on health care reform in Massachusetts, was polling better nationally, he would wrap his arms right around it."