ROMNEY: Oh, well that is not a big matter. My Democratic friends added basically about a $20 a month charge to companies that don’t provide insurance to their employees, but $20 is not a big figure. I just don’t think we need to add any kind of fees at this point, so I vetoed that, but most likely the legislature will put that back in, but that’s not the key feature.

The key feature here is we’re letting people get their own private health insurance, not a government plan, not a government insurance plan, not a government takeover in any way, shape or form, no new taxes being applied. And as a result of doing that, we’re getting everybody insured. It’s with portable insurance purchased from the private companies.

MATTHEWS: So if you can afford it, you buy the insurance under this new plan. If you can’t afford it, your co-pay is still there? You still have to pay a part of it, right? If you can’t afford anything then the government pays for it? ...

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ROMNEY: If you can’t afford anything, then we help subsidize the purchase of your insurance plan. So let’s say you’re earning two times federal poverty which, in my state, would be roughly $35,000 a year. In that case, you’re going to be paying about $15 a week for your insurance. We’ll pick up the remainder.

And so the state picks up some portion of the insurance premium to make sure that everybody has a plan they can afford and it’s not a government plan. Again, it’s a private plan offered by the many insurance companies that compete here.

MATTHEWS: OK. Sounds like great news, governor. Congratulations. I hope the numbers add up because it sounds like something we really need in this country.

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