Posted on 02/03/2008 8:43:59 PM PST by BamaBelle
State projections obtained by the 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
All bases are now covered
Generalities make for a weak argument. Please provide specifics.
Look on the bright side. Hillary just called for garnishing wages for socialized medicine, copying the RomneyCare plan. Now that Romney's creation is melting down, maybe she'll move away from it a bit.
Gov. Romneys plan, developed in collaboration with Heritage Foundation health analysts Bob Moffit and Ed Haislmaier, includes a three-pronged solution that goes a long way towards solving the problem:
Ensuring that all those eligible for Medicaid are covered, which substantially reduces the costs of providing care to the uninsured
Encouraging those who are uninsured by choice to sign up, by using incentives like lower co-pays and premiums along a sliding scale
Creating an affordable product, designed by private insurance companies and coordinated by an insurance exchange to make insurance available to all workers, who pay for coverage before taxes
Expanding government health care to cover the uninsured wouldnt work, Gov. Romney said. Medicaid wasnt built as a broad-based all-citizen insurance program, he elaborated. Growing Medicaid and adding new, optional populations to Medicaid is very expensive. Instead, the state turned to the private health industry to develop solutions.
The insurance exchange is an attempt to bring market forces to bear on health care, Heritages Ed Haislmaier wrote on National Review Online. The basic insight behind a state health-insurance exchange is that markets sometimes work more efficiently and effectively with a single administrative structure to facilitate diverse economic activity. Thats exactly what stock exchanges do for the buying and selling of securities. Like a stock or commodity exchange, Romneys health-insurance exchange would be a clearinghouse but never a product regulator.
To prevent duplication, please do not alter the title. Thanks.
http://www.myheritage.org/Features/Archive/2006/012706_Romney.asp
Thursday, January 31, 2008
More on Romney’s Health Insurance Disaster
Romney is trying to blame the plan’s skyrocketing costs entirely on the current administration. Even if Romney has a good sense of the business world, his health plan disaster demonstrates his lack of foresight on the inevitable course of big-government bureaucracies. Needless to say, the mainstream media and establishment Republicans are ignoring this huge black mark in Romney’s record.
http://massresistance.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-romneys-health-insurance.html
Quoting from the article in the (flaming leftist) Boston Globe, intended to undermine the candidate flaming leftists most fear as an opponent:
Mitt Romney.
“The administration of Governor Deval Patrick produced the new estimates to launch negotiations for federal funding,...”
Sounds like a negotiation strategy, is being reported as a fact.
Very sloppy, lazy reporting.
I have found, it is usually prudent to presume, (all) journalists are (always) trying to advance some sort of agenda with everything they say and write.
Because they usually, are.
“Romney claims that “we worked to reduce the burdens of regulation.” If only this were true. While Romney may have “worked to reduce” regulation, his plan significantly increased government regulation by mandating that every citizen purchase insurance either through their employer, the government, or on their own — the first time ever that a state has mandated that citizens be forced to purchase a state defined product. The Congressional Budget Office noted that this level of government intervention and regulation was “unprecedented.” Businesses with more than 10 employees were forced to provide health insurance or pay a “fee” of up to $295 per employee per year. Even though he vetoed this specific provision of the bill (which was over-ridden by the legislature), Romney still signed the bill. As a result, there are now calls for increasing the “fee” due to fund the growing costs of the subsidized programs.”
“Romney Care also significantly expanded government bureaucracy establishing at least a dozen new boards, commissions, and miscellaneous institutions. One of the commissions is charged with the responsibility of eliminating “racial and ethnic health disparities.””
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22649l
Don’t you think Romney should have been able to forsee this happening?
I mean he would think that people would change it, right?
Why did he believe otherwise?
The answer is it didn’t matter to him. It was another feather in his cap for him.
The wisdom of the founders was in crafting a framework that was resistant to human failings.
Romney’s exploits show no wisdom at all, only vanity for his Godhead image of himself.
I’m shocked-not!
My own health care costs have QUADRUPLED since 1998.
I may end up moving to Massachusetts some day if costs
continue to go up at that rate.
LOLOL!
Yes, by tommorrow I think Romney might be a NYG fan.
You never know with that guy.
“Amazing the Globe comes up with these figures AFTER Romney steps down as governor while he is running for President.
Im sure they were all for it in the runup to the vote. Peachy-keen numbers and everything.”
Uh... How could they have known about today’s state projections a year ago? Let me guess, you also bashed the media for not reporting in 2000 that Sept 11 was going to happen in 2001?
You think socialized medicine is more cost effective than the free market?
“Romney is known as a “John Kerry Flip Flopper” because of his politically expedient vacillating positions on many issues ranging from abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and gun control. We can now add healthcare to the list.”
~ But its not his fault. The liberals made him do it. ~ JR
There's a bumper sticker for his campaign.
Vote Romney! It wasn't his fault!
Romney: Make all the promises you have to...
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