Romney NAACP speech, House health care vote hand in hand

>>> boeing grabbed the headlines in mitt romney 's naacp speech today. given that was the only new thing about his remarks. they were the usual throwaway lines about preenterprise and america running on freedom. you could add to his fortune if he buckled that as a homeopathic cure for insomnia. there was a complete lack of detail on how to fix the economy. the problem, as always, is that romney just never connected to his audience. and a disconnect to which even he himself alluded.

>> if you understood who i truly am in my heart and if it were possible to fully communicate what i believe is in the real enduring best interest of african-american families, you would vote for me for president.

>> that's the problem, mr. romney . we don't know what you believe and that's because you repeatedly refuse to tell us. i'm joined now by congressman elijah cummings , democrat of maryland, live with us from the capitol. good afternoon.

>> good afternoon.

>> i want to get to the latest charade on health care in a moment. what was your reaction to hearing mr. mitt romney say that he would be better for african- americans than the current president?

>> that's impossible to believe. and martin, i think we are getting see who mr. romney is. he was standing in front of an organization spending over a hundred years trying the make hurt african- americans and minorities have a right to vote. but he's the same candidate running the head of the party doing everything in its power on suppress african- americans ' rights to vote and hasn't said -- hasn't said absolutely not one syllable and probably defended it. the other thing that he stood up and did -- we get a chance to know who he is he -- talked about doing away with the affordable care act . i can guarantee you that just about everybody in that room either knows of somebody or had somebody in their family who has -- experienced a significant health episode and was harmed because they did not have sufficient health care or they were mistreated from the health care standpoint. that's the last thing you say to somebody who knows of people, who have died as a result of not having proper health care . that says a lot about him. i don't know what he expected. but when you talk about life and death and then you come in and tell people that the -- one of the greatest accomplishments of this president, you are going to take it away, take it away from them? that's a major problem.

>> if i might correct you, sir, just on one point, he did not refer to it as the affordable care act . he referred to it as a obamacare. however, the house has just voted for the 33rd time to repeal the same health care law . bound for defeat in the senate. i just have one question for you, sir. why must they waste you and your colleagues' time with these pointless exercises? is it not time for us to move on? to implement this law so that people can benefit from it?

>> martin, i agree with you. the american people have already said move on. but basically, what they are trying to do is try -- again, doing the same thing that -- accused romney of. they want to do away with any accomplishments of this president. you know what, they had nothing to replace it with. they are going to tell my constituents to give up the opportunity to have their policy until they are 26 years old, give up -- tell my constituents to give up the opportunity to make sure that pre-existing conditions is not -- does not preclude them from getting insurance? i could go on and on. the fact is that they have nothing to replace it with. you know what, martin, you know, the people i talked to, many of them in dire straits , if they don't have the affordable care act , they not only get sick but many of them sadly will die.

>> yet, in spite of that, sir, we didn't hear a single word from mitt romney as to how he would replace the affordable care act but i guess that's because he's responsible four its prototype in massachusetts .

>> yeah, you know, we had -- our committee, we had a senator from massachusetts yesterday to come in and to remind us that it was the romney act that was the child of -- i mean, the father of the national act. and he said that 98% of the folks up there in massachusetts are insured and they are doing fine. by the way, the unemployment rate there is 6%. not 8.2%. so it is not harming employment. so i mean, we need to -- we need to get on with it. i have got people in my district and there are people all over the country that immediate what this act brings about. they do not want to give up the things they already have -- already entitled to and need to get on with it.

>> congressman elijah cummings , thank you, sir, for joining us on a busy day in the house. we appreciate your time.