A friend, David Schmidt from California writes:
It has been brought to my attention that the first line of this post needs fact-checking. We have asked the author, David Schmidt, to provide references for this claim.
Frm. Gov. Mitt Romney has stated many times that he wants to take his Massachusetts RomneyCare health plan national.
“Enrollment in the state’s new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection.”
SOURCE: http://BOSTON.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/18/success_could_put_health_plan_in_the_red/
Doesn’t this sound like a wonderful problem? The government subsidized health care is so popular that it is expanding the state’s budget. Of course, this could never happen if we implemented this on a national level, could it?
“Romney’s vaunted healthcare plan also disappoints. It forces individuals to purchase medical coverage and slaps the non-compliant with “tax penalties,” as a state-government radio ad described them last November. These charges were $219 in 2007, equal to the personal exemption on Massachusetts’ state tax. However, this year’s formula could crank this figure up to $912. Businesses with at least 11 workers either must offer health insurance or face annual fines of $295-per-uninsured employee. This is consistent with Romney’s statement at a January 5 GOP presidential debate: “I like mandates.”
This program is run not by the free market, but by the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, a Romney-created government bureaucracy. For 2007, reports the Pacific Research Institute’s Sally Pipes, RomneyCare is expected to have cost taxpayers some $619 million. That’s $147 million and 31 percent above original projections.
Romney blames all this on tinkering Democratic state legislators.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen down the road as the Democrats get their hands on it,” Romney told the National Review Institute. “I was a little concerned at the signing ceremony when Ted Kennedy showed up.”
SOURCE: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12568
Please wakeup my fellow fiscons up! While Romney’s plan may sound nice, it will only take a year or two before the government is running the whole thing. This is how the history of big government has gone. A good plan is implemented by government…government does not stick to the plan and it degrades into government taking the whole thing over.
Why is nobody talking about this?
Instead we like to ponder questions such as Romney whether is really pro-life when he says he is or whether Huckabee will really not raise taxes when he pledged not to. We are missing the boat and if we do not wake up soon and start asking the right questions, the party of the right will continue to act like the party of the left.
Edited at 4:45 CST
January 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I think you need to find a quote to back up your fist sentence. Romney says states can figure out their own plans to fit their state.
NEXT.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Romney is not the most conservative in the field.
He’s more conservative than Giuliani or McCain, but less conservative than Huckabee or Thompson.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I don’t want to promote Mitt but I also want to be fair. Check this study out. It is very interesting.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/releases/2008/1/18/vanderbilt-poll-explains-why-romneys-flip-flopper-label-sticks-political-scientist-says-anti-mormon-bias-finds-cover
It reminds me of how Martin Luther King was treated. MLK was called the biggest liar in America by his critics because they did not want to appear racist. I think there is a similar dynamic today and the aforementioned study puts some evidence behind this.
While, I think Mitt would be electoral disaster because of this bias, I have recently realized that Huckabee will be an electoral disaster of equal proportions.
I read a study of Utah politics. It showed that Mormons will sour quickly on a candidate who would proclaim that they have a divine mandate for office. Historically, it has been shown several times when a candidate said they had the endorsement from God they were killed at the polls. It did not matter what party or if they were Mormon, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. In fact the first governor’s race there was a candidate who trumped his relationship to an Apostle of the Mormon church and he was slaughtered at the polls. The study said that campaigning with a religous mandate is worse than being pro-abortion. Bill Orton who was mildly pro-abortion won Utah County (the most densely populated LDS county) because his opponent kept foolishly trumpeting his Mormon ties.
What does this have to do with Mike Huckabee? Mike Huckabee is going to get a similiar reaction from Mormons because he campaigns heavily on his religous identity. Mike Huckabee only hope is to be pitted against Hillary Clinton because of her high negatives. But if Huckabee were to run against Obama, the Mormons populace would admire his character and will feel compelled to vote for Obama out of a sense of white guilt and would be repelled by Huckabee’s religious identity tactics. In fact because of this dynamic the following states would go to Obama: Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and even Utah. I never thought I would say it, but based on the study I read, a Dem could sweep those states if Huckabee is the nominee.
Now, a cynic would say that if Mike Huckabee was Mormon that his religous identity would not hurt him with Mormons. No. This study showed when a Mormon went beyond casual reference to religion and start talking religous identity, the backlash from fellow Mormons were ferocious. So yes, if Huckabee was a Mormon and given his current tactics it is very clear to me that he would be unelectable in the Intermountain west too.
So based on this information, I am now only going to advocate John McCain or Fred Thompson. Mike and Mitt will never win the general election based on their respective flaws and it would be irresponsible to promote their candidacies.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Before you panic Brett, read this:
http://www.mittromney.com/Issues/healthcare
“Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all, government-run system, we must recognize the importance of the role of the states in leading reform and the need for innovation in dealing with rising health care costs and the problem of the uninsured.”
You are losing it man.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“Frm. Gov. Mitt Romney has stated many times that he wants to take his Massachusetts RomneyCare health plan national”
When does he say this? I have always heard him say that “one state’s plan might not be the best for all state plans”. Each state should find the plan that works the best for their interests which will be different than MA.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
#4, 5 –
Contact David at http://honest.townhall.com/g/8a76bb8c-5138-43d4-9281-25df7d9fd8b5&comments=true#comments and let him know your complaints – Im sure he will listen.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I think that Huckabee supporters are more effective at push-polling than distortion like this. Propaganda such as this may be somewhat effective to the uneducated casual news consumer, but it won’t fly to those who know & understand the facts.
Nice try though.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
#2 Agreed. This is one of the reason’s why I don’t like Romney. This also gives you a lot of insight into Rush’s and Hannity’s credibility. Their lips have been shut about this. Its sad. I use to respect.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
“Romney is not the most conservative in the field.”
Romney is the most conservative candidate who is electable.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Mitt Romney: “I like mandates.”
This says it all. It’s leadership by administrative decree.
This may work for CEOs with low people skills.
It’s failing, however, in the state of MA.
Go Mitt! Show us the way!
January 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
#7 Why don’t you tell us more of the facts with Romney’s forced health care plan in MA? The one that he praises Sen. Ted Kennedy about as well.
This video talks about Romney and Ted Kennedy regarding this bill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEzi27trV-Q&eurl
January 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
#2 Don’t necessarily agree with your assertion that Huck is more conservative than Romney. Can you explain.
I do believe, however that Fred is the most consistent conservative.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
three points:
1) Romney implemented this program, and then the liberals took back the state. The fact that the system is now experiencing problems doesn’t surprise me.
2) Romney is not pushing for a national program, he is pushing to allow the states to set up their own health care policies to cover everybody. Romney has long said what works in one place might not work in the other. MASS care has been pretty sucessful in the sate (its not without problems, but what is?)
3) At some point, we are going to have to get everybody covered. Its going to happen. We can either do it through socialist-style government takeovers, or through programs that rely on the free market with some government aid for the poor.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I considered supporting Romney back in September. I really was on the Romney bandwagon for about a day. What makes me not support him is because I don’t believe him. I believe he’s a social moderate first of all, and second I think he’ll do or say anything to be elected. I think he pass health reform in Massachusetts so he could use it in a national campaign. I could be wrong about that, but I suspect it. Also, he didn’t issue one pardon, not even ONE, while he was governor. This tells me he cared more about his political future than any of the cases before him. Also, I know his father and his mother were social moderates/liberals, and his statements up until a few years ago were in line with his parents’ views. I just don’t believe him.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
#11 That’s not the point of the thread.
The real point is if Romney wants to take it national as it is purpoted here. And the answer is no.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Okay, now that Brett’s made his distortions, I’ll reply.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
The Heritage Foundation: “In reality, those who want to create a consumer-based health system and deregulate health insurance should view Romney’s plan as one of the most promising strategies out there.” (Edmund F. Haislmaier, “Mitt’s Fit,” The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/, 1/28/07)
January 18th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
“At some point, we are going to have to get everybody covered. Its going to happen. ”
That’s the truth. If people can’t see that coming then there is something wrong with them. The way I see it, we’ve got two choices:
1) Support a plan which is controlled by the State (not the Federal gov’t) that involves private insurance companies and providers keeping the market free much like auto insurance.
2) Or let the liberals institutionalize socialized medicine. Your choice..
January 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
The Club For Growth: “Governor Romney Deserves Credit For Proposing A Plan That Encourages Individually-Owned Health Insurance…” “Given these limitations, Governor Romney deserves credit for proposing (and to a lesser extent, enacting) a plan that encourages individually-owned health insurance and circumvents some of the inequities carved into the federal tax code.” (The Club For Growth, “Mitt Romney’s Record On Economic Issues,” Press Release, 8/21/07)
January 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Massachusetts Citizens For Limited Taxation: “Romney’s plan also got a thumbs up from an unlikely source yesterday – Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation, a group that often looks with deep suspicion on government mandates and programs. … The tax activist said that Romney is proposing universal insurance, not universal health care – which Anderson said society effectively already has, as almost no one is denied care even if they can’t pay for it. ‘Let’s just face that reality and deal with it,’ Anderson said, adding that covering more people will reduce costs to taxpayers.” (Jay Fitzgerald, “Romney Wins Health-Y Reviews,” Boston Herald, 6/23/05)
January 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Good analysis nowandlater. Thanks for the objectivity.
I agree with your premise about mormons and voting. We like to vote for someone based on their qualifications, not their religious identity. When candidates claim that they should represent us BECAUSE of their religion, we tend to sour away from that. Let religionists have their religion, and let politicians have their politics. Those are my thoughts.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Investor’s Business Daily: “Health Care: Massachusetts lawmakers have passed a universal-coverage bill. Republican Gov. Mitt Romney plans to sign it. Has Romney flipped? Not at all. He has won a victory for market-based reform.” (Editorial, “Blue-State Surprise,” Investor’s Business Daily, 4/6/06)
January 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Brett, this is pretty bad. Romney has never said he wanted to take this nation wide. This is like saying that Huckabee wants to take his system for granting pardons and commutations nation wide.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
The Heritage Foundation: “The Subsidies Require No New Tax Monies.” “The subsidies require no new tax monies. Federal and state funds currently subsidizing hospitals for treating the uninsured will simply be redirected into buying coverage for the low-income uninsured.” (Edmund F. Haislmaier, “Massachusetts Health Reform: What The Doctor Ordered,” The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/, 5/6/06)
January 18th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
#6 – Why should we have to go complain at a totally different blog about blatantly false statements you post here? Mitt has never said he wants to take the MA plan national, and instead has repeatedly said just the opposite, that reforms should be done at the state level, but that the Feds need to loosen up the rules governing the money, to give the states enough freedom to craft appropriate solutions. You read the history of getting the Massachusetts plan enacted, and getting Fed approval was the biggest hurdle, took months, and Ted Kennedy and the MA congressional delegation, to make it happen.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Looks like bjalder26 is the man with all the facts handy today. It makes it kind of laughable to say things like “Please wakeup my fellow fiscons up!” since institutions such as those bjalder26 listed have praised Romney’s plan.
Like I said, I think they are more effective at pushing polls.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
“Credit for starting from a consumer-centered approach goes principally to former Governor Mitt Romney and his administration.â€
The Basic Concepts of Reform
“At its core, the Massachusetts legislation is a two-part approach to making consumer choice and ownership of health insurance the fundamental organizing principle of a state’s health system.
The first part is a reorganization of the state’s insurance market to provide small business with a simple and practical way to defined-contribution their workers into individual, portable coverage of the workers’ choice without, in the process, losing any of the benefits of current federal standards and tax preferences for employer-group insurance.
The second part is an accompanying shift of taxpayer funding for the uninsured from a provider-centered, and largely opaque and unaccountable, reimbursement approach to a more transparent, consumer-centered system of premium support for the purchase of private health insurance.â€
OR 1) make health insurance portable, and 2) use money to help people get insurance rather than paying for the health care costs of the uninsured.
“Why would Massachusetts or any other state want to reorganize its health system around the principle of consumer choice and ownership of health insurance? There are at least five very good reasons.
Better Value for the Money. The first reason is to get the system to deliver better value. Market-oriented health reformers have long argued for improving the health care value proposition by making consumers, as opposed to employers or government, the ultimate decision-makers in the system. It is only when the users and the payers are one and the same that the incentives in the health care system will be properly aligned to produce better value—that is, better results at better prices.â€
“If the insurance carrier is made the agentof the consumer, as opposed to the agent of the employer or the government, it becomes much less important who writes the check to the doctor, the hospital, or any other medical professional.
In other words, in a consumer-choice market, whether any given consumer opts for an HMO, or a high-deductible plan with an HSA, or a preferred provider organization (PPO) plan, or an indemnity plan becomes simply a matter of personal preference and risk tolerance. Regardless of the plan choices of individual consumers, the whole market functions better because it is the consumers, and not their employers or government, making those choices. In a consumer-choice system, all plans, regardless of their scope or design, must serve the interests of consumers and must compete to provide consumers with good value for their dollars.
The issue of reforming public education offers a good analogy. Children certainly get a better education if their parents are more involved and engaged in their school and its curriculum. But to transform the system substantially and produce better results on a large scale, it is necessary that parents gain direct control over the funding of their children’s education and the ability to choose which school they will fund. Truly transformative change will occur only if the educational system is reorganized around the principle of parental choice made possible through education vouchers.
In the same way that education vouchers make schools the agents of parents, consumer choice and ownership of health insurance makes health insurers the agents of patients. It is that fundamental change, above all others, that can truly transform the whole health care system.â€
“Real Competition. Finally, the fifth reason a state would want to shift to a consumer-choice model is that it is a precondition to removing obstacles to greater competition among medical professionals delivering health care services—competition to devise not only ways of reducing costs, but also ways of improving quality and outcomes. This is particularly true when it comes to the current system of financing uncompensated care largely through hospital emergency rooms. The creation of Medicaid and Medicare, combined with increases in the costs and complexity of care resulting from advances in medical science, and the imposition of a federal treatment mandate under EMTALA[7] have collectively produced the current situation wherein the vast majority of residual “charity care” in the U.S. health system is delivered in hospital emergency departments.
There are those who at least seem to be quite comfortable with the current situation. They argue, in one forum or another, that uncompensated care costs are small and manageable—around 5 percent of total health spending—and that given the availability of care, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, it is unnecessary or even undesirable to make covering all of the uninsured a legitimate policy goal. Indeed, some might even argue that the relatively less attractive circumstances associated with obtaining “free” care through an emergency room serve as an inducement to buy health insurance.
Yet while those points may have some validity, they overlook the negative collateral effects of continuing the current policy. One inescapable result of making hospital emergency rooms America’s de facto health care safety net is that many hospitals are effectively deemed “too important to fail.” For if society is counting on those hospitals to provide this essential public service, then they must be kept open—and since “free care” isn’t really “free,” it must be funded either through explicit public subsidies or cost-shifting to private payers, or a combination of both.
Therefore, hospitals need to be publicly subsidized and allowed to overcharge private patients to keep their doors open, regardless of their cost structures or the quality of care they provide. Furthermore, anything at all that might threaten those existing funding arrangements, and thus the survival of the hospital, must be avoided.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you wander down that logic path, you will find, one after another, virtually all of the justifications for numerous anti-competitive policies and arcane health care regulations from state “certificate of need” laws (designed to restrict the supply of medical services under the guise of cost control), to the government prohibitions on the building of specialty hospitals without ERs, to Medicare’s hospital price-setting methodologies, to, for example, the state of Maryland’s all-payer hospital rate-setting scheme that systematically overcharges every purchaser of every hospital service by 8 percent to cover the cost of uncompensated care.
It is also down this path that we find the justification for the tens of billions in federal and state tax money being shoveled out to hospitals to offset their uncompensated care costs, with virtually no transparency and no accountability. Today, that cost to America’s citizens is in excess of $40 billion annually .[8]
But if our de facto health policy is that numerous “essential” hospitals need to be propped up with a complex web of direct subsidies, institutionalized cross subsidies, and all manner of complex regulation, why should we think that such arrangements will ever produce a high-value health system that delivers better quality at a better price? In short, how can we have robust competition based on value if numerous hospitals can’t be allowed to fail in a competitive market?
Furthermore, because the EMTALA mandate applies only to hospital emergency departments, it also has the distorting effect of shifting more care to that venue and away from lower-cost, and often more appropriate, alternatives such as clinics and physician offices. In the case of individuals with chronic conditions, that shift often produces less continuity of care, resulting in poorer outcomes and higher system costs.
Thus, converting hospital uncompensated-care subsidies into a system of premium support to aid the low-income in buying coverage is a precondition for creating value-focused provider competition. Once nearly all residents have insurance coverage—and particularly if individuals choose and own their coverage—policymakers can insist that hospitals start earning their money the old-fashioned way, by competing to offer customers good value, and begin dismantling the regulatory edifice propping up some providers and shielding them from competition.â€
“Here, too, the Massachusetts experience is instructive. Governor Romney did not propose a health insurance mandate.[11] What he proposed was that those who still insisted on going without coverage in a reformed system demonstrate proof of their willingness and ability to pay their own bills by posting a bond or establishing an escrow account. The Massachusetts legislature replaced those provisions with a requirement that individuals buy health insurance or be fined—essentially an individual “play or pay” requirement.[12]â€
“I contend that the governor had the better idea, on both philosophical and economic grounds.â€
“After receiving bids from 10 carriers, for the first plan year, six different carriers are now offering 42 plan options through the Connector for the unsubsidized population, and enrollment in those plans began on May 1.[16] That’s approximately 41 more options than most Americans have today. Nationally, 80 percent of companies offering health benefits provide workers a choice of one plan—take it or leave it.â€
“Pre-reform, the lowest premium for a typical uninsured 37-year-old in Boston was $335 per month with a $5,000 annual deductible. Now, through the Connector, the same individual can get health coverage for $184 per month ($118 pre-tax) with a $2,000 deductible—well below the $250 a month target set back when the legislation was being developed.[17] Indeed, most can get a health plan worth twice the value at half the price.â€
“But had the state allowed health plans into the Connector on an “any willing plan” basis and not required the board’s “seal of approval,” certifying all plans already approved by the state’s insurance commissioner, Massachusetts residents might have had even more choices and a more competitive marketplace. Moreover, had the legislature done more to revisit the inflexible regulatory regime in Massachusetts, including 43 benefits mandates,[18] health insurers could have offered residents still more variety and even more affordable products.â€
“In the past year, the number of uninsured in Massachusetts has been reduced by 34 percent.[19] As of June 1, enrollment of the uninsured eligible for subsidized coverage through the Commonwealth Care program was 78,900— ahead of the target set of enrolling half the eligible population (70,000) by July 1, 2007—and as of July 1, enrollment was 92,046.[20]â€
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/hl1044.cfm
January 18th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
bjalder26
Holy Crap!!! This response reminds me of when the Japanese Minister said that Americans were basically lazy back in the 80’s. Tear him up
January 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I like how #2 says Romney is less conservative than Huck. I agree he is less conservative than Thompson (but thompson in my opinion does not work hard enough to win the gen election). Huck is about as conservative as Carter was. Pro life liberal. he took a state that had some of the lowest taxes to make them have some of the highest taxes. campaigns against free trade. And campaigns against wall street. Huck is simply in the wrong party (as is McCain).
January 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
#27 – jeez, next time post a link, not a novel.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Once again we see the wonderful Brett level of professionalism as he touts blatant falsehoods and passes blame on when he is challenged on this crap.
Wow! This sounds awfully similar to what one of the candidates likes to do. “Bolton advises me” ring a bell anyone?????
January 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
“the party of the right will continue to act like the party of the left.”
The last comment by Brett is funny since it is coming from a Huckabee supporter. He’s describing his own candidate.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I think everybody should read the actual literature on Romney’s Health Care reform, but to break it down it has 3 major parts.
1) Make it possible for people to buy the type of health insurance they want. Don’t let them be stuck with the health insurance plan prescribed by their workplace, or by the government.
2) Take the money we’re using to provide free healthcare through emergency rooms and other programs and use it to help the poorest Americans get their own health insurance.
3) Provide a financial incentive for people to get their own health insurance. If somebody doesn’t sign up for insurance, and uses the defacto free health care the government provides, then they don’t get the tax credits everybody else does. In essence it’s government insurance paid through the taxes of those who choose it over real insurance.
The effects it has are 1) you can choose your own insurance, thus only insurance programs that provide the best value will survive. 2) you’re insurance plan can be funded through several means without those means choosing your plan. You pick the plan, and money from your job, your wife’s job, your paycheck, and if you’re poor, the government can all be used to finance your chosen plan. 3) we don’t need to use “free†health care programs to care for people. This means we aren’t using the most expensive and least effective means (emergency rooms) to care for things like chronic conditions. 4) the costs of “free health care†that we currently provide aren’t passed along to others through taxes, increased health care fees, and increased premiums. Thus people can actually afford insurance.
If you’re somebody who takes personal responsibility, it’s truly a plan you should back. Why should I pay taxes, pay increased medical fees, and pay increased insurance premiums to pay for emergency room care for the uninsured?
January 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
#30, those are highlights, but I broke it down in #33. Not everything can be covered with snips, and I actually don’t like to talk about “Health Care Reform” for the obvious reason that it’s complicated.
For those who don’t want to wade through this issue, you can either trust conservative sources like The Heratige Foundation, Investor’s Business Daily, Massachusetts Citizens For Limited Taxation, and The Club For Growth who have nothing to gain.
Or you can trust the liberal media, and Romney’s competitors (who have copied many aspects of Romney’s plan).
January 18th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
huck is the one that wants to spend government money for the common good of all. mitt has said he would do a state by state plan. huck is a big part of the reason we spend this time talking about how pro life mitt is. and this post really sucks. look brett, huck will win SC tomorrow and be the front runner for a while, so just enjoy it and stop being a hater.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
When you get past the rhetoric, Huckabee supports conservative health care reform as well.
“I value the states’ role as laboratories for new market-based approaches.â€
“When I’m President, Americans will have more control of their health care options, not less.â€
“As President, I will work with the private sector, Congress, health care providers, and other concerned parties to lead a complete overhaul of our health care system. It is time to recognize that jobs don’t need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care.â€
“the answer is a consumer-based system, not socialized medicine.â€
-Mike Huckabee
“Credit for starting from a consumer-centered approach goes principally to former Governor Mitt Romney and his administration.â€
“Market-oriented health reformers have long argued for improving the health care value proposition by making consumers, as opposed to employers or government, the ultimate decision-makers in the system. It is only when the users and the payers are one and the same that the incentives in the health care system will be properly aligned to produce better value—that is, better results at better prices.â€
“Finally, the fifth reason a state would want to shift to a consumer-choice model is that it is a precondition to removing obstacles to greater competition among medical professionals delivering health care services—competition to devise not only ways of reducing costs, but also ways of improving quality and outcomes.â€
- Edmund F. Haislmaier
Basically, there is no “market based systemâ€, without making it “consumer centeredâ€. When politicians say “market basedâ€, think Mitt Romney.
Also from Mike Huckabee:
“making health insurance tax deductible†– THIS IS A MANDATE. Higher tax for those who have health insurance, lower for those who do. It’s the same thing people criticize Romney for.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
They used to say that milk came from cows and Health-care came from Democrats.
At least Romney is doing something about the crisis in health-care in America. It is a crisis.
I for one was very heartened that Romney specificaly noted my home state of Texas in saying that his plan wasn’t a one-size-fits-all plan. Texas has about 24% uninsured, and MA has more like 15%. The demographics are radically different. The point is that if Republicans don’t solve the health-care mess soon, then the democrats are going to solve it by taking the easy road to single-payer government health care. If anybody has ever worked in the VA system (or Metropolitan Canadian/French/Australian/English/Japaneese/etc.) hospital systems, you know what kind of nightmare that could be!
It would help if we were offered intelligent alternatives fact is that the Government either has to mandate Taxpayer-funded H.C. or else it has to mandate that free-riders pay into the insurance system. Railing against mandates isn’t going to get my grandmother a colonoscopy when she has GI cancer and lives off a fixed income.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Romney has not said he wants to take the Mass plan national at all but that he’s proud of what he did in Mass and that states should be free to choose their own best option. Pretty telling that you Huckabites are now resorting to lies to trash Romney.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Mitt’s actual performance — not the imparsible rhetoric he is applying today — indicates that he is actually a third-column, Clintonian Democrat! For cryin’ out loud, the jerk implemented the first stage of HillaryCare 2.0.
No matter how completely he sold Heritage and IBD on his plan at the time, the clock is running to determine whether health care costs bankrupt MA or MA dumps MittCare! TICK!! BLOODY TOCK!! BLOOMING TICK BLASTED TOCK!!
Rombots gotta stop huffin’ the same glue…
January 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Try to wrap your mind around this one. If we don’t go along with the Health Care reforms proposed by Romney, Thompson, Huckabee and others what will we have. Medicare, Medicaid, and S-chip, and free emergency room care which are constantly expanding. Eventually, everybody will be covered by one government program or another, it’s socialized medicine by degree. We’re on a slippery slope, and when Romney shows us how to get off, we criticize him?
January 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Brett: perhaps in your next article you could explain how Huckabee is going to implement the Fair Tax. Make sure to include sections on amending the Constitution, how Huckabee will prevent fraud, what happens to the people who lose their jobs, etc.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Cato, Dubya (to his credit), John Stossel, and Rudy have all pushed similar versions of the same health insurance reform Rx. This involves tax incentives to get individuals to buy health insurance and to allow them to squirrel away money in HSAs.
Health insurance should only cover catastrophic insurable risks, not each and every pill, each and every runny-nosed visit to the doctor. The government should otherwise encourage the states to reform their own mandates for what health insurance covers while forcing them to accept interstate trade in health insurance.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Everyone conveniently forgets that Romney implemented his health care plan in an 87% LIBERAL STATE!
He vetoed everything he could, but was overridden on virtually everything.
I think it’s an amazing plan given the conditions. Think what he could do in a RED state!
January 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
No one’s denying the fact that Romney made himself into a malleable, willing tool for the liberals in MA…
January 18th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
#39 No MarkG, Romney’s plan decreases the socialized aspects of health care and increases personal responsibility. It’s a step off of the slippery slope of socialized medicine we are already on. It’s a step in the opposite direction. What’s your candidate going to do to stop the increases in Medicare, Medicaid and S-chip? Nothing? Most of the Republican candidates are calling for “market based reformsâ€, they just try and pick off a little aspect of the Massachusetts plan (which Romney didn’t support) and call it a bad plan (while supporting the other 99% of it).
Nice try, but when you have the actual facts, rhetoric doesn’t carry much weight. Besides why would anybody trust competing camps over conservative groups that have actually done the research?
January 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
#44 I am, it’s not true.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
6 – Brett, you are a piece of work. You are immeditaely and convincingly blasted for the very first sentence in the hit piece you elected to post here, and rather than own up to it, you side step and claim innocence blaming the author. Well then, how about taking the post down? You know all too well that keeping a lie up on the board, wihile immoral, serves to promote your candidate. So much for the “Christian” thing to do.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
47, is that what you see? I’m sure no matter what I post, do, or say you will not change your mind or inclinations.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
46: Mitt’s sad MA plan was so warmly greeted by Democrats that Ted Kennedy (“I was surprised!” said Mitt) accepted his invitation to come to the signing.
Face it: The health insurance mandate is in perfect alignment with Hillary’s and Edwards’s health care plans.
On the issue of health care reform, Romney, Clinton, and Edwards thus all stand proudly to the left of Barry O!
January 18th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
48 – It’s not just what I see, it’s what we all see. You posted, on the front page, a story, the first sentence of which is unequivocably false. When called on it, you gratingly told questioners to direct their questions to the author of the article. You offered nothing by way of appology, did not update your post to include the fact that Romney has NOT in fact advocated the rest of the country adopt his plan, and did not try to back the assertion. You didn’t do any of that. But you did leave the false statement up, thus, helping to perpetrate a lie. I don’t think that’s a Christian thing to do. Am I wrong? Maybe we should ask Mr. Huckabee.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
MarkG…
I’m a physician in MA. This health plan was very much needed. I don’t know how many times I have
operated on folks who could have afforded health care ins but would not buy it and then came
in with a catastrophic problem. You know who paid for their care? You and me.
Romney’s plan at least makes people take some responsibility for their health care. Yes, there is
a mandate…but there are a lot of mandates of life. If you want to drive a car in MA…you also have
to purchase insurance.
Romney’s plan was not only creative, it has broken a stalemate on the issue. The next area of reform
needs to be cost transparency. I had a patient last week who was charged $7,000 for an MRI that
she paid out of her own pocket. (She was from Vermont.) I can tell you that there was no reason for
that MRI to cost that much. The reason the fee is that high is that there is no transparency in the system.
We can’t cut costs if we don’t know what they are.
You can knock on Romney for a lot of things but this health care plan is a step in the right direction.
Even if it proves that there is a funding gap….it is less than the 100’s of millions that we used to
pay out here in MA every care to provide free care for those without insurance.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
#50,
I do not know the facts behind the statement. I see your posts, and since you are a Romney supporter, what you say must be taken with a grain of salt. I did not write the article. David Schmidt did. I rely on him to fact check. He is usually right on, and I have asked him to back up his claims. Is it false? I don’t know.
“Frm. Gov. Mitt Romney has stated many times that he wants to take his Massachusetts RomneyCare health plan national.”
That is the line that has you tied up – what would you like me to do? edit it? change it? i didn’t write it. Lets see what David has to say about it.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
#49 MarkG, you need to read the stuff that I posted. You’re only using rhetoric, and not using any actual facts or knowledge.
Don’t you support Rudy?
“Rudy proposes an income exclusion of up to $15,000 for those without employer coverage to make insurance more affordable.â€-MANDATE!
“Help Low-Income Individuals and Families Secure Health Insurance: Rudy proposes a Health Insurance Credit to low-income Americans that can be coupled with other revenue sources such as Medicaid and employer contributions to make coverage more affordable to millions of the uninsured.â€
If I understand Rudy’s plan correctly, it is different though it the way that is wants the government to have more control of health care outcomes.
“Rudy will propose new initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles and wellness programs, and tie Medicaid payments to a state’s success in promoting preventative care and tracking obesity for children.â€
Nice try.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
#52 The problem is two fold 1) from the way it’s been posted it LOOKS like what David Schmidt wrote is your writing, whereas none of it is “yours”.
2) David Schmidt is completely wrong, and not just on this, other things he’s posted are blatantly false as well.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Huck expanded entitlements in AR. Of course thats ok, because its Huck, and even Hucks lies are the truth in the imagination of Brett Passmore.
Huck has already violated his no new taxes pledge as far as I am concerned by advocating a cap and trade carbon emission standard which will increase gas prices and electric bills. So much for Huck’s support of the middle class. Huck the deciever wants you to pay more.
“Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said he supports a mandatory cap on global-warming pollution and that the U.S. has a moral obligation to address climate change.
“It goes to the moral issue,” the former Arkansas governor said at a climate-change conference today in Manchester, New Hampshire. “We have a responsibility to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, to conserve energy, to find alternative forms of energy that are renewable and sustainable and environmentally friendly.”
Huckabee said he supports an economy-wide “cap-and-trade” system to control greenhouse gases, which scientists say are causing climate change. The program, which has been introduced in Congress, would create a market for buying and selling permits to allow carbon-dioxide emissions. President George W. Bush is among Republicans who oppose a carbon cap.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aYDB2MPIf0EU&refer=politics
January 18th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Brett, you should have been more weary about trusting a blog that feels the need to put the word “Honest” in their title.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I know David Personally – I have asked him to cite that claim.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Vista This health plan was very much needed. I don’t know how many times I have operated on folks who could have afforded health care ins but would not buy it and then came in with a catastrophic problem. You know who paid for their care? You and me.
There’s no doubt that LBJ’s free pass at the hospital emergency room has led to extreme perversions in health care and its billing all — the free rider problem — across the country. For my way of thinking, the best repair for a free rider problem is to strengthen the service provider’s rights to get reimbursement. This could include attaching property or garnishing wages, if need be.
It’s also unfair to suggest that individuals, wealthy or not, all try to skip out on their emergency room bills.
Many of the opaque billing procedures come about in part because of the byzantine nature of health insurance policies, which are ultimately regulated by state legislatures and state insurance commissioners. This is one more reason to deregulate the insurance market and create incentives for reform in Provider-InsCo paperwork.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
50, we should not ask Mr. Huckabee, who always justifies the sleazy actions of his supporters, just like he does with all of these sleazy phone calls. A real leader could shut them down.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
52 – What would I like you to do? Make a note in your post indicating that there doesn’t appear to be anything to back up that claim.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Hows that
January 18th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Bretts’s argument technique in his posts is to tell only half the story, and hope that no one knows the other half.
This is what Huck does when he talks about his tax cuts when in reality he broke all of Clinton’s tax and spend records.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
62,
How do you justify that kind of lying? He left office with the same tax rate as entering office. revenue went up because income under his watch went up.
Personal income increased 51% when he was gov.
He left office with 800 million in the public coffers – compared to a 250 million deficit when he entered office.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
63, that is the same income tax, you LIAR. Sales tax UP UP UP, gas tax UP. There was no deficit when he entered office, that is just a made up LIE. Get your lies strait before you cut and paste them.
How he proposes a cap and trade system which will be a government mandate that increases gas and electric prices. I am sure you can cut and paste and excuse for that too.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
61 – Thank you.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
QuacknHack I didnt cut and paste anything. I do not lie – i read and post what I find. Just like you.
“There was no deficit when he entered office, that is just a made up LIE. Get your lies strait before you cut and paste them.”
how do you justify this crap? where do you get your info? please post your reference- it is common knowledge that Mike came into an administration in shambles and serious debt and had to work to fix it. The previous administration’s goons even nailed his door shut so he couldn’t get into the office – he was given lemons and made lemonade. How do you explain that he had record high approval rating from these tax payers? they obviously were very happy with his performance.
stop calling me a liar – I call it like I see it.
Cap and Trade might increase the tax burden, I don’t know, I haven’t researched it.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Cap and trade increases gas prices and electric rates, I HAVE researched it. Its a government action that increases costs, so you can give your excuse that it isn’t a tax.
And you lied about tax rates in AR during Huck. The income tax didn’t change permanently (It went up and back down), but the sales tax and fuel taxes did go up.
There was not a deficit in AR in 1996. That isn’t the truth. Huck the deciever decieved you.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Also, Brett, it’s fairly misleading to claim that Huckabee left AR with $800 million in the state coffers.
While the surplus is true, Huckabee also left AR with nearly $1 billion in general obligation debt.
Things like that might be why Quack is saying you tell half the story.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Vista 51,
Thanks for posting. It’s important that people who actually work in the health-care field give us their perspectives. Most people don’t really understand.
MarkG seems to think that simply removing insurance regulations will magically reduce costs. He also thinks that there aren’t plenty of people who drive around in BMWs and then have heart attacks which rack up $70,000 in medical bills and then walks away. The cost of going after him is just too great, (and do we really want to give private organizations the power to garnish wages?????)
People also ignore the fact that some people with genetic diseases simply wouldn’t be able to manage themselves without mandates to Insurance companies (unless you want government to cover everything). A hemophiliac, for example, would cost an insurance company $250,000 to cover every YEAR. Thats a $10 MILLION liability over 40 years that no insurance company is going to take on. There are extraordinary costs in the healthcare field. Doctors have an obligation to treat. The government should make the system workable. Attacking the only man who has made any progress whatsoever in this area is simply childish and counterproductive, especially when McCain, Huck and Giuliani have made similar proposals. At least Mitt preveted MassCare from going universal (which was going to happen if Mitt didn’t intervene).