Pawlenty would run on a platform of healthcare reform repeal

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible presidential candidate in 2012, called for repeal of healthcare legislation during a television interview Sunday morning.

“I think ObamaCare is one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the modern history of the country,” Pawlenty said on CNN’s State of the Union.

“I’m doing everything I can in Minnesota to stop, delay or avoid implementation in my state, including signing an executive order saying we’re not going to participate unless required by law or approved by me,” he said.

Pawlenty said his administration has been given the chance to enroll early in the new federal healthcare program and has declined.

Pawlenty called for “market-based solutions” and said he hoped that state governments would try to limit the program or that a Republican-controlled Congress would roll it back.

He said repealing healthcare reform would be his campaign platform if he ran for the White House in 2012.

“I think having health solutions dragged into Washington, D.C., top-down, command-and-control bureaucratically run entitlement programs they can’t afford are a bad idea,” he said.

Pawlenty said healthcare reform solutions should make use of free-market dynamics and not rely on “federal bureaucracy.”