Updated below my initial post with responses to some of you .
Some have argued that the reason Massachusetts's voters rejected Obamacare (through their vote for Brown) was that they already have "their healthcare". As this Cato Institute Study by Aaron Yelowitz and Michael Cannon points out, most of them already had health insurance before RomneyCare, and are now paying more for it. RomneyCare has only added about 5% more people to the insurance rolls, and insurance rates have gone up faster than the average in rest of the nation. I'm told it is political suicide for a politician to admit a prior policy mistake, but it would be sure nice to see Romney (and Brown and other supporters) admit it. How about it Romney? Just about every other leadership effort you have touched has turned to gold, but you missed with this one. Isn't it time to admit your mistake and ask for forgiveness?
Responses:.
Jonathan (14) If RomneyCare is good for Massachussetts then why would it not be good for the whole United States? What, really, would be the difference?
Jed ( 26), please go on. You were about to list strengths of RomneyCare. What you listed were reasons RomneyCare isn't as bad as ObamaCare, not strengths of it.
It's not the details of RomneyCare that are bad. It's the fundamental design -- requiring healthy people to join the flawed insurance market or fining them if they don't. This compounds the problem that has brought us to this point - namely, employer subsidized health insurance that is highly regulated by government (and sandwiched in between two publicly financed insurance systems -- Medicaid and Medicare). What I want from Romney is an indication that he grasps this. Everytime he defends the fundamental design of RomneyCare he does the opposite. (As Duffman (2) suggests, he should "explain thoroughly his thinking on the subject".)
Jonathan (14), Romney is a consummate businessman. That's not the same thing as an economist and I wouldn't agree that he "understands, better than almost anyone else on planet earth, how the free markets really work".
Craig (27) RomneyCare is popular in Massachussetts? Not for long I predict if their insurance costs continue to rise faster than the average in the nation. The nation in general wants change of some kind, just not ObamaCare.
Democrats want to provide access to all without cracking the rising cost nut. There are basically two ways to control costs - ration it from the top down - as Democrats want to do -- or make people financially responsible for their care and let them optimize (self ration) from the bottom up. My ideological bias is for the later. The best step way to do that is to eliminate the employer tax deduction for health care and promote high deductible insurance plans and health savings accounts. And we need a leader who is willing to explain to people that there is no free lunch -- the only people who can finance health care are us.
Jonathan (14). If I really considered Romney to have no soul, would I have pointed out that everything he has touched, management-wise, has turned to gold? I am a big fan of Romney but this weakness on health care is the main thing holding him back. The reference to "repent" and "forgiveness" was tongue in cheek, but used deliberately because it is language both he and I speak. To repent is more than just to acknowledge a mistake, it requires an earnest effort to correct it.
Well, I don't know if he has to go to that extreme (even tho lately that seems to be the norm...asking for forgiveness), but IMO he would be 'wise' to address the issue in a more contemporary way and explain thoroughly his thinking on the subject. It would be far better to have this a 'settled issue' from his standpoint if and when the time comes when he considers again running for POTUS (with possibly Brown as a running-mate...certainly NOT Sarah).
Time for the Republicans to start dealing with details and spelling out their 'ideas' for 're-change'. :)
That, of course, begs the question of why he signed it when he knew it was not good in the first place. If he vetoed, would it have been overridden by the Democratic legislature anyways is just only one question I have?
And who doesn't think we need some form of Health Care Reform? It is just that right now the majority party won't entertain anything but their wishlist.
Posted by: swatter on January 22, 2010 10:14 AM(The ultra-liberal dem cheerleaders at the Boston Globe are on record as trashing it quite a bit for instance, and also the LA Times.)
Bottom line to just about every article is that for the average MA taxpayer, cost of premiums has gone up higher than national average while standards of service have gone down.
Posted by: johnny on January 22, 2010 10:22 AMWhat Romney should do is take a page out of Obabma's playbook and blame RonmenyCare on somebody else.
Posted by: G Jiggy on January 22, 2010 12:55 PMTo be somewhat fair to Romney, many changes for the worse were done under Deval Patrick. Although While I agree that Romneycare is a collossal failure and he is responsibile for implementing it, doesn't some of the blame have to land also with the majority of Mass. residents that still support it? The worse thing about the ever increasing expense of Romneycare is that the state is now petitioning the government (that'd be you and I) to help pick up some of the tab for their oversightedness and incompetence in running their bloated state program.
State projections obtained by the [Boston]Globe show the program reaching 342,000 people and $1.35 billion in annual expenses by June 2011. Those figures would far outstrip the original plans for the Commonwealth Care program, largely because state officials underestimated the number of uninsured residents.
The state has asked the federal government to shoulder roughly half of the program's cost from 2009 through 2011, but there is no guarantee of that funding. Commonwealth Care provides free or subsidized insurance for low- and moderate-income residents.
Screw that. Let the dummies that are "in favor" of it get pinched for the true cost as they are the ones that wanted it in the first place. Here is a link to a WSJ article on Romneycare that those that support this federal health legislation pushed by the Democrats should read and absorb. There is still time to come to your senses on this boondoggle.
I completely agree. Romney was a Republican Governor of an otherwise deep blue state and some version of "Romneycare" would have passed with or without his signing off on it.
I happend to be one of those that believe that Romney IS uniquely qualified to be President (Probably the only one to be quite honest on either side of the aisle). I feel it's too simplied to use his time as governor in a blue state as a barometer of how liberal or conservative he is. Outside of "romneycare", everything the man touches turns to gold. So I will continue to support Mitt Romney in 2012 as he is going to be one of the few that can actually clean up the mess left by Obama.
Posted by: Rick D. on January 22, 2010 01:56 PM" Mitt Romney and John McCain are the same low level Rinos that are no more than, a Liberal with a R before their names."
They are what is known as a LIAR. That is the acronym for a Liberal Impersonating A Republican. As an example, Dave Reichert.
Posted by: Brian Thomas on January 22, 2010 01:57 PMYeah, I wasn't aware either until I came across that article- it's truly insanity. And we wonder why we have managed to accumulate an $11 trillion national debt in this country...
Peggy Noonan writes about her Wednesday conversation with newly elected Senator Scott Brown, who commented on the economy: " 'The question is how to solve problems. It's not bailouts. What made America great? Free markets, free enterprise, manufacturing, job creation. That's how we're gonna do it. Not by enlarging government.'...
"The next day he took the 8:00 am shuttle from Boston to Washington for his first trip to the Capitol. On the plane, after they took off, the pilot came on and said 'Senator Brown is on board, on his way to Washington,' and the plane erupted in cheers."
Posted by: Michele on January 22, 2010 04:34 PMThere are those elements out there (*cough* Huckabee *cough*) who want to bring religious affiliation into politics. If you're from that camp, just come out and say that Mitt Romney has no soul, the LDS church is of the devil, and only "pure" Christians should be elected to office. Don't hide your religious bias behind politics and poison both in the process.
On the health care, I am absolutely certain that he has said, numerous times, that what is right at the state level is not right at the federal level. He supports no such plan at the federal level, and is actively working against any such plan today.
The Mass. plan isn't even his. Rather than allow the people of Mass. to shoot themselves in the foot, he nudged the gun to the right so that they only shot off their little toe. If he could've done more, he would've. This man understands, better than almost anyone else on planet earth, how the free markets really work and what damage socialism does at any level. He also knows how to talk down a befuddled state to accept less socialism rather than more.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on January 22, 2010 05:02 PMIf you want to focus on exports and imports and ignore all the other numbers, like economic efficiency (which America puts all other countries to shame in), then of course you are going to find cases where, taken in microscopic context, it seems like free markets do worse.
As for me, I'd rather measure success or failure of an economic system based on how free individuals are to pursue their dreams, and how much time they spend grinding away to fund the state. I wish we had the whole world beat in that regard, but it is possibly true that Germany has more economic freedom than the US despite their socialist policies. Especially now that the government controls all of the banks and a sizable chunk of the automotive industry, it's not too surprising.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on January 22, 2010 06:03 PM
Since when is Germany socialist. They are, and have been, conservative. Most continental European countries are conservative, as opposed to the socialist Nordic countries and the liberal english speaking countries.
Are you suggesting that the US is more efficient than the Netherlands, France, or Germany? All of whom have higher productivity numbers than the US? Also, are you suggesting that we are the only capitalist country? That makes your argument easier to prove if we are the only ones in the category as defined by you.
Posted by: Alan on January 22, 2010 06:16 PMWould you say that social mobility would be indicative of that?
If so, guess where we rank?
An uninformed "conservative" does none of us any good.
Posted by: Alan on January 22, 2010 06:22 PMAre you equating "health care" with "government-rationed health care" ala Canada and the UK? If this is the case, and Germany is free-er than the US, then this is despite their socialism and not because of it. After all, the US isn't free of socialism either, with Social Security and Medicare being two glaring examples of it.
A country doesn't need the government to provide health care to see that everyone has health care. After all, the government doesn't provide food and yet Americans are all fat, especially the poor.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on January 22, 2010 06:47 PMBy the way, when did Germany become socialist? Adenauer must be turning in his grave.
Posted by: Alan on January 22, 2010 07:03 PMI certainly understand why conservatives like to criticize countries like Canada and Britain for health rationing.
The word "Rationing" is the right word for conservatives to use in these cases because rationing as I understand it refers to an action of the government rather than the market. You might have plenty of money to buy bread, but if it's rationed by government, you can only buy one loaf.
But raising the specter of single-payer rationing ends up confusing the issue of healthcare in the US, where the biggest problem is high cost. If you are trying to fix America's healthcare system, you need another boogeyman, because here people are as often over-treated as under-treated. (See Shannon Brownlee's book, "Overtreated."
This overtreatment stems partly from our wealth and our recent cultural history (particularly the dramatic success of medications like penicillin for the WWII generation), but a huge aspect of it is the fault of a government program, Medicare, which reimburses for procedures without careful regard to outcomes.
Still, I agree with Alan. Somehow we need a system that makes sure people get medical care with some level of disregard for their financial state, but at a bargain price to the rest of us and while preserving the market for new medical techniques.
I'll give Romney credit for trying, even if ultimately the MA system fails.
Thanks for your time
new left conservative
Posted by: new left conservative on January 22, 2010 11:16 PMThere are ENORMOUS differences between RomneyCare and ObamaCare. For example, while both have a mandate, Romney's fine is only $250 if you fail to get health insurance, vs $250,000 and 5 years in jail under the ObamaCare method. That $250 helps subsidize real costs of potentially using the emergency room uninsured. The Dems $250,000, theoretically, I think, covers the cost of being in jail for five years.
Two, Romney's plan was limited by state spending limits, where the govt version would actually lead to deficits. If RomneyCare is any strain on the Massachusetts system at all (adding 1.2% to the state budget), it is because the state already acts irresponsibly liberally on many other issues. Romney helped save the state from a much bigger deficit before enacting RomneyCare.
Three, while neither system does much to contain costs, including to individual citizens, that doesn't mean cost cutting measures cannot be put into effect. That was the next step, according to Romney.
Four, the reason RomneyCare costs anything at all is Dems added some premium extras to it. Those extras could be cut...or made optional for a different price, if Dems in Massachusetts didn't want them.
Five, RomneyCare is popular, and had 98% unanimity by the end of the voting process. ObamaCare had around 1/3 support in the United States by the time it failed.
Six, if it weren't for the RomneyCare experiment, ObamaCare likely would have passed, as Scott Brown wouldn't have had a chance, so we should be praising Romney.
I could go on, but the fact is, Romney's free market health care reform is far superior from socialist "redistribute the wealth" ObamaCare.
I don't think Romney should be apologizing, although he should be frank about the weaknesses of the plan while taking credit for its strengths.
If Massachusetts changes its mind and does not want the plan, they can always repeal it, but it still enjoys widespread support, other than for the rising rates that Duval Patrick (Governor) and the Democratic Congress of Massachusetts fail to address...
Posted by: Jed Merrill on January 23, 2010 04:37 AMWhat's up with that? I still recall the way they canned Bryan Suits - the Friday before Veteran's day. I don't know what they must have offered Bryan Suits to return, but I am sure curious.
Posted by: FormerKVI_Listener on January 23, 2010 10:05 AM
Let each state have a public option (like Washington State already has, as Maria Cantwell admitted on national television) and let buyers pick from the lowest cost plan (Kentucky has a perfectly good plan for $99 a month -- a small independent businessman would love to be able to buy health care for himself for that price, and to give his employees each $1200 a year to buy such a plan for themselves).
Posted by: Crazy Man on January 23, 2010 12:27 PMActually the Obama penalty is nominal, a "tax" of few hundred or thousand dollars I believe. The $250,000 penalty and jail time that you refer to is the potential penalty for refusing to pay your taxes. That's a standard part of the tax code that has nothing specifically to do with health care. Even if you don't agree 100% with the tax code, don't you believe it should be strictly enforced?
Posted by: Bruce on January 23, 2010 04:03 PMFormer KVIlistener:
They probably offered suits a job that paid money and he decided to take it. I am not sure why KVI keeps hiring the same type of hosts though. I would much rather have them given that guy from 5-6 get a full show. OR play brian and the judge live.
As for Romneycare, he knew that the legislature in Mass. was going to pass a health care bill over his veto, so he tried to aim it more toward the middle and make it less onerous. With a Democrat-controlled legislature in Mass. it was the best he could do at the time. I don't fault him for that; politics is the art of negotiation and cooperation. The current administration and Congress could use more of both.
Posted by: Clean House on January 23, 2010 06:29 PMAnd Romney did it in Massachusetts the way Massachusettsans wanted it. The legislature and to an extent the voters approved this. Scott Brown voted for it. It is working for the state, and they prefer it to Obama care, as would I.
There are some very liberal additions, and commissions, that have caused costs to increase and Romney is not responsible for those. He removed many coverage mandates by veto but was overridden by the legislature. You see, Massachusettsans wanted certain things and even Romney could not convince them of their errors. But states should be able to do their own plan, the way they want to do it. And Mass did.
You will never hear Romney say his plan would work in all states. In fact, he says the opposite, because his state had a relatively smaller uninsured population. Not only that, but the costs of the reform are within budget and that is based on non-partisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Assoc. Its not breaking the bank as most posters have misrepresented and 98% of residents are insured now. I call that a success.
The costs of health care have increased, but that is not same as the costs of the Massachusetts program. The program costs are much less. Skyrocketing health care costs are happening nationwide and is not exclusive to Mass. So don't blame Romney for that.
I would ask those who post here to please put some thought into all your knee jerk reactions that the Mass plan is a failure. You are just repeating talking points from rivals like Huckabee. He knows nothing about it and purposely confuses costs of insurance program with costs of healthcare providers. He is manipulating the electorate and many here have fallen for it.
Mass insurance reform is working, and its working the way Mass wants it to work. They have the ability to change it, fix it, re work it. Its their state plan and they have done little to change it except to make coverage even more generous. Its obviously fine with them. And when they wake-up and elect some fiscal conservatives to the legislature they can finally tackle the costs of care.
Posted by: Lori on January 28, 2010 04:03 PMWhat voters care about is the incessant rise in health insurance premiums. What aspect of the Massachusetts system (even as originally supported by Romney) would reduce health insurance premiums? How has it corrected or even mitigated the subsidization by employer-based insurance of Medicare, Medicaid, and emergency room services?
Posted by: Carter Mackley on January 29, 2010 09:12 AM