“It’s worth noting that the Obama Administration continually points out that ObamaCare was, in a large way, modeled after RomneyCare. Romney has rightly received much criticism from economic conservatives for the obvious similarities between his plan and President Obama’s command and control plan.
Governor Romney often defends his plan by rightly saying that the states are “laboratories of democracy.” However, he should recognize that this is one lab experiment that has completely failed. According to a Heritage Foundation analysis of RomneyCare three years out, the budget for subsidized care had exploded from $133 million in FY2007 to around $800 million by FY2009. In the first year, Massachusetts raised $12 million in revenues from tax penalties assessed by the Individual Mandate. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Association projects a FY2010 budget of $880 million.
At the time of its passage, Governor Romney claimed that under his plan “the costs of health care will be reduced,” but the Cato Institute has highlighted several statistics that show that RomneyCare increased costs, including the fact that premiums rose faster post-RomneyCare than anywhere else in the nation, 21-46% faster than the national average.
Cato also noted that there is mounting evidence that “Massachusetts residents are responding to the individual mandate not by obtaining coverage but by concealing their insurance status. Coverage gains may therefore be less than official estimates suggest” and that “despite stiffer penalties than ObamaCare will impose, increasing numbers of people are gaming the individual mandate by only purchasing health insurance when they need medical care. Such behavior could ultimately cause the ‘private’ insurance market to collapse.”
Empirical evidence demonstrates that RomneyCare has failed to control health care costs, increased the size of government, and by its very nature introduced more government and less freedom into health care markets. Governor Romney should admit that RomneyCare is a failure, and soon.
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He (Romney) has changed his position on several economic issues, including taxes, education, political free speech, and climate change. ..”
excerpt http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers/?subsec=137&id=905
If you REALLY want to beat Obama, Romney is the weaker candidate.
ALL Government run single payer universal health care schemes are inevitably doomed to provide horrible health care to all but the elite, result in rationing and have huge cost over runs that eventually bankrupt the system.
Britain’s National Health Care and Cuba's health care systems are models of Socialized medicine in the final stages of bankruptcy and quality of care implosion.
This is what happens when politicians and judges mandate universal health care to health care providers without actually funding to the cover the costs of treating the uninsured who never pay their bills.
We live in an entitlement minded welfare state where the “gimme” society rules.
Until we change the Welfare State entitlement mentality this and the ability of welfare minded voters to vote themselves benefits, this is what we will have to deal with.
Massachusetts has a majority of voters who want to expand entitlements and vote for expansion of the welfare state. Romney gave the Mass voters what they demanded and he would not have been elected unless he gave in.
ON ONE is going to argue that Romney was far, far better as Gov than Deval Patrick who has been a total disaster for the state.
And yet, Patrick was solidly elected to a second term in office.
Massachusetts is a truly corrupt and f**ked state from a political perspective and Romney was the closest thing the state has had to good government in a generation.