Asked what other states should adopt the Massachusetts health-care program he spearheaded, Mitt Romney said today he wouldn’t recommend any other state should adopt the program without making some changes.

“It’s not even perfect for Massachusetts,” Romney told the Washington Examiner’s Bryon York. “At the time we created it, I vetoed several measures and said these, I think, are mistakes, and you in Massachusetts will find you have to correct them over time. But that’s the nature of a piece of legislation of this nature. You’ll see what works, what doesn’t, and you’ll make the changes. But they have not made those changes, and in some cases they made things worse. So I wouldn’t encourage any state to adopt it in toto.”

As York notes, Romney has been more enthusiastic in the past, including calling the program a “good model” for other states on Meet the Press in 2007. However, in a 2006 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Romney struck a more cautious note, writing about the program that “Other states will learn from our experience and improve on what we’ve done.”