Posted on 11/18/2007 8:41:55 PM PST by Jim Robinson
If there is anything that qualifies Mitt Romney to be president of the United States, it is his record on health care and his record of leadership. If there is any one thing that might keep him out of the White House it is his Mormonism.
The United States will spend nearly $2.4 trillion on health care in 2007, and that number is expected to rise to $4 trillion by 2015. But, high spending does not translate into broad access to health care. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 45 million Americans – about 15 percent of the population – lack health insurance.
And Americans are concerned about health care. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that health care is the top domestic issue that the public wants presidential candidates to address.
Of the nine Republicans running for president, only Romney has put significant creative energy into tackling the health care problem. As governor, Romney signed into law a bill that made Massachusetts the first state in the union to guarantee health care for all residents. The Massachusetts plan, which is being studied by 25 other states, requires all uninsured adults to purchase health insurance and offers state subsidies to make the insurance affordable.
In October, Romney told a group of New Hampshire doctors that he would use the Massachusetts plan as a national model. In fact, the Massachusetts plan has already framed the national debate on health care. According to experts, the plans offered by the two leading Democratic contenders, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, look very similar to the Massachusetts plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
As slick as he looks, he is still a gun grabber.
But don’t you understand? It’s conservative because of these FREELOADERS!!! They’re the ones that are going to hospitals! We have to stop them! We’re paying for them anyway! Don’t you understand a conservative plan when you see one???
What if you need an abortion while you’re falling out of a 10th story window? Who’s supposed to pay for that? The taxpayers?
And what of the abortionists? Are they supposed to be slave labor to the freeloaders??? Hmm?? What kind of conservative are you that you want slave labor????!!!!
</Willard Supporter>
You cannot spend that much time in Massachusetts and not get it all over you...and it does not wash off. RINO.
I’ve also got some bad news for them. Socialized health insurance will NOT bring down the cost of health care. When government starts writing the checks or forcing individuals to do so, the costs will always go up. Guaranteed! The service providers get more money to squander and line their pockets and it’s boom time for the health insurance racket. And, as always, the taxpayers will foot the increasing bills.
Ah, yes - Taxachusetts, the first state to completely reverse the effects of the establishment of our Constitutional Republic.
I often wonder how they ended up back at square one or square negative one after serving as The Cradle of Liberty.
Of course it won’t. The way to fix the problem was to remove the mandates and government interference to bring the costs down for catastrophic care. That way, everyone COULD afford to be insured so that there were none of these mythical ‘freeloaders’.
Of course, they could only remove so many, because there are a lot of federal restrictions on health insurance that gum up the works. We need to make things cheaper by GETTING THE GOVERNMENT OUT, NOT BRINGING MORE IN!!!
Amen
“As slick as he looks, he is still a gun grabber”
Yep another one!
You have until December to buy health insurance or else..
As a recently retired service provider, this is simply untrue (unless, of course one cheats and commits fraud.) The two major govt health care insurers, Medicaid and Medicare pay much less than private pay or insurance. The extra money goes to whatever administers these programs.
The Massachusetts plan, which is being studied by 25 other states
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think about what that means. if liberals don’t get their socialism through Hillary, they will try to get it one state at a time.
....Which is completely irrelevant. Two relevant QUESTIONS would be:
1. Of those alleged "45 million", how many get sick enough (maybe 5% of them?) to require the services of a doctor, and
2. Why should I be forced to pay for "health insurance" for people who may never even get sick??
Also, how many of those 45 million are illegal aliens?
What you wanna bet that at least 25 million or more are illegal.
They should not be included in this number and do not deserve insurance by my Tax Dollars.
THAT is an excellent point!
People,
Health insurance is Well On Its Way to eclipsing Iraq next year in importance. Think very carefully about what that means. Iraq victory will be pretty clear and in hand over the next 9 months and there is a very real chance that the short memoried public will say yay, it’s over, maybe Bush was right — now what’s next on my agenda? Oh yes, my health care costs.
Don’t think it can’t happen that fast. It can.
And even if it did not, what is the conservative position on health care going to be to govern from? There HAS to be a palatable position or we are going to have a single payer, government administered plan rammed down our throats and the taxes to pay for it.
Want to know the problem? here it is. Conservatives have jobs with health benefits.
Period.
That is the problem. Because conservatives do, there is ZERO visibility into the issue. The only price increases seen are the annual premium bump that takes your paycheck deduction for your portion (not paid by your employer) up from $70 to $77. You shrug on that.
You cannot realize this is not normal. NORMAL is zero employer contribution and far far worse, no group plan. Most, and a fast growing number, of people do not work at a place that has a group health plan. This is the key issue. Conservatives have no feel at all for the difference in price between group plans and individual plans.
The solution “buy your own damn health insurance” doesn’t work when the amount in question is $12,000/yr and that’s 40% of your after tax income. And it ESPECIALLY doesn’t work when someone loses a job and has a child with a chronic illness . . . and every single individual (non group) plan excludes pre-existing conditions.
There needs to be a conservative reply to this. Bush’s SOTU contained the start, and what Romney has proposed is pretty darn conservative in comparison to a government managed single payer plan.
Status quo is NOT going to fly. There will have to be a conservative reply to this. Romney’s is at least something. You have to realize why “everyone has to have insurance”. It is to transform individual plans into group plans so the insurance companies can get young people premiums to balance the cost of families and older people. If young people consistently don’t buy insurance, the price to the rest of society explodes.
So it’s not abusing freedom. It’s adjusting risk profiles to something other than devastating
B/S. Republicans say no to socialized health care. Where is the constitutional authority for socialized health care? Stick to your guns! (And keep your powder dry!).
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