Rick Santorum claims that the expansion of government health care in Obamacare inspired him to run for president and regularly condemns the government’s involvement in the Medicare program. “We should not have a government-run health care system on Medicare or anything else, because it completely distorts the market,” he explained at a town hall in South Carolina on January 12. “It’s top down. It’s not the way America works best.”

But this morning, during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, the former Pennsylvania senator embraced the most government-centric health care system of them all: veterans health care — a fully integrated structure of government payers and providers. Santorum said his parents met on a government veterans base and said his father worked as a government health care provider:

SANTORUM: The answer is [veterans health care] should be excluded from any kind of reduction. These are people, men and women, who stepped forward to defend this count country. The country has a special obligation to them as a result of that. these are heroic people. [...] I grew up on VA grounds, my mom and dad met at a VA after World War II. [...] And I got a chance to meet veterans and work with them and volunteer at the hospital. And i can tell you that there problems in the VA health care system. There’s a lot of problems with quote government-run medicine. [...] The one thing we can’t do is cut those benefits.

Watch it:

The veterans’ health care structure of doctors and hospitals is not without its problems, but it actually provides veterans with benefits that are the envy of the rest of the health care system — including private payers and providers. A study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.”

Mitt Romney reiterated his pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act during Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in South Carolina and promised to replace the law with three national provisions that, he claimed, could help small businesses and individuals find health care coverage. Unfortunately for Romney, all three ideas are already incorporated in full or in part in the health care reform law he seeks to repeal. Watch his comments:

The comparison:

For more on Romney’s replacement plan and why it’s not ad adequate solution for lowering the number of uninsured or reducing health care costs, click here.

Our guest blogger is Jessica Arons, Director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at American Progress.

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.

Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.

Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost.

Family planning results in better health outcomes for women and their children—a woman who has a planned pregnancy is more likely to be in better health when she gets pregnant and more likely to seek prenatal care, and children who are born at least two years apart are healthier. Family planning is also the most effective tool we have in reducing unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion.

An expanded religious exemption would have created an unreasonably large loophole that would have kept these benefits beyond the reach of millions of women. This decision honors the conscience of these women over that of the institutions that employ them and ensures that cost will no longer be a barrier to accessing basic and essential preventive health services.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) criticized fellow presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s (R) record on abortion issues at Thursday night’s debate, saying Romney had been inconsistent in his support for anti-abortion causes. Romney, Santorum noted, supported abortion during his 1994 Senate campaign and his 2002 campaign for the governorship of Massachusetts.

Romney, predictably, attempted to deflect the criticism, saying he had “made a mistake” years ago. “Is there any possibility that I ever made a mistake in that regard?” Romney asked. “I didn’t see something that I should have seen? Possibly.” Watch it:

Immediately after the exchange, Santorum’s campaign began distributing copies of the pledge Romney signed in 2002 for Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, which included Romney’s signature, which featured the following questions and answers, among others:

Do you support the substance of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade? YES

Do you support state funding of abortion services through Medicaid for low-income women? YES [...]

Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools? YES

In the pledge, Romney also expressed support for expanding access to emergency contraception and for legislation to help prevent “violence, intimidation, and harassment directed at reproductive health providers and their patients.”

Romney spokesperson Stuart Stevens would not further expand on Romney’s explanation of his past support for the pledge as a “mistake,” saying after the debate that Romney’s response stood for itself. In November, the Romney campaign insisted that he “does not believe that federal taxpayer dollars should be used to fund groups that provide abortions or abortion-related services,” despite his support for Planned Parenthood’s 2002 pledge.

Tim Pawlenty — who famously characterized the Affordable Care Act as “Obamneycare” because it is so heavily modeled on Mitt Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts — doubled down on his argument that President Obama and the Democrats relied on Romney’s law as a blueprint for national reform in the spin room of Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in South Carolina. But then, the former Minnesota governor went further, suggesting that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have also embraced “elements of Obamacre”:

PAWLENTY: Newt Gingrich embraced the individual mandate and elements of Obamacare as well. Rick Santorum has embraced other elements of health care reform that are problematic relative to Democrats and Barack Obama. So don’t single Mitt out with respect to your question.

Watch it:

Indeed, all three candidates supported the individual requirement to purchase health insurance coverage and Romney and Gingrich backed exchange-like mechanisms where individuals and small businesses have the advantages of large employers in purchasing coverage. They also embraced regulations that prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and subsidizing coverage for lower-income Americans. For more on the similarities between Gingrich’s and Romney’s health care proposals and the Affordable Care Act, click here and here.