In Fla., Romney fleshes out details of health-care plan

Romney said that if the Supreme Court does not overturn the law in full, he would work to repeal whatever remains of it on his first day as president by granting a waiver to all 50 states to opt out of the law's restrictions.

The Obama campaign hit back in a statement Tuesday: "For too long, American families have faced a choice between going bankrupt to afford the care they need or going without that care at all, and Mitt Romney wants to take us back to that time."

Romney first laid out a plan to replace the health-care law in a speech in Michigan last spring before he formally launched his campaign. But he avoided detailed discussions during the Republican primaries, partly because the Massachusetts law he championed and signed as governor is so similar to the federal law and drew sharp criticism from many in his party.

Romney said that his top priority was to care for the nation's uninsured but that he would make states responsible for providing that service.

"I believe that states have responsibility to care for people in the way they feel best," Romney said.

He said he wanted to make the nation's health-care system more like a consumer market. To do so, he said, he would allow individuals and small businesses to buy insurance coverage with the same tax advantage that larger businesses enjoy and to purchase insurance across state lines or join organizations to give them bargaining power with insurers.