Mitt ♥s single-payer health care

Mitt made a couple of interesting pronouncements on his trip (no, not about London being unready for the Olympics, or how he's suddenly uninterested in his wife's horse). Here they are (my italics in both quotes).

First, on Israeli health care:

Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the G.D.P. in Israel? Eight percent. You spend eight percent of G.D.P. on health care. You’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, 10 percentage points more…We have to find ways—not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to fund and manage our health care costs.

And on Polish free-market government:

Your nation has moved from a state monopoly over the economy, price controls and severe trade restrictions to a culture of entrepreneurship, greater fiscal responsibility and international trade. When economists speak of Poland today, it is not to lament chronic problems but to describe how this nation empowered the individual, lifted the heavy hand of government, and became the fastest-growing economy in all of Europe.

One smallish problem for his stated positions back home: both of those countries are pretty "socialist", with guaranteed government-provided health care, not to mention Poland's child-subsidy (doubled for low-income families) and fully-funded university education.

Basically, Mitt loves socialism except when Obama proposes it.

Or, as a friend of mine put it:

Myself, I don't think what he thinks necessarily coincides with what he says. He's on stage and he's playing the role. I see Romney as what the Russians call a prisposoblenets -- someone who will gladly alter his convictions for personal gain.