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I am a conservative, and happen to be an RN. There are parts of health care reform that will remain NO MATTER WHO GETS ELECTED just because they happen to make fiscal sense. For example, the parts that stipulate that health care providers should be rewarded for keeping their patients healthy, versus sending them fat checks for care provided after you are already sick. Teach a patient with Congestive Heart Failure how to stay well with proper diet and medications, and reward that, versus rewarding docs only when people have disease complications and need hospitalization. Private insurers are going to adopt a lot of the reforms on their own because it will save them money and keep patients healthier.

I am NOT in agreement with socialized medicine and think it is WRONG. For many reasons, but mostly because of the disparity in care it will create. But, that's a big topic for another post.

I am a conservative, and happen to be an RN. There are parts of health care reform that will remain NO MATTER WHO GETS ELECTED just because they happen to make fiscal sense. For example, the parts that stipulate that health care providers should be rewarded for keeping their patients healthy, versus sending them fat checks for care provided after you are already sick.

Sorry, but there is nothing conservative is the government legislating this behavior.

Being conservative means knowing the proper role of government, this is not it. This is the responsibility of the individual.

Wrong, very wrong. The government can never create outcome measures that will improve outcomes. Just like every other endeavor and industry, outcomes MUST be evaluated by the billions of decisions made by consumers every day in the free market. The patient, that is the consumer,
must be in a position to determine the price and value of healthcare, not government masterminds. The patient is put in charge when THEIR money (HSAs) is used to purchase healthcare, directly and through real catastrophic insurance. The government’s role in healthcare should be devoted to maintaining the ‘safety net’ instead of socializing the entire system, and in adherence with the Constitution, this should be done at the State level.
When the government creates incentives for what they regard as ‘good care’, inevitably, providers find ways to avoid risky and costly patients in order to optimize the government outcomes and rewards. Government outcome goals will only lead to ‘gaming’ of the system. This will result in providers competing for the ‘worried well’ and avoiding sick, non compliant patients.
The health care system can improve if we adhere to free market principles. Allowing IPAB boards and government masterminds to make medical descions is an affront to individual sovereignty and those that cherish liberty.

As someone who is chronically ill, that’s one of the more worrying parts of Obamacare. Will doctors not want to take me on because I’ll lower their stats? Will doctors drop me if I’m difficult and don’t exercise enough and don’t eat exactly as I’m instructed to? I shouldn’t have to even ask that question. This is why I hate socialized medicine. Maybe it makes fiscal sense, but I don’t think it does; I think it will end in the hardest patients having difficulty finding doctors, which will be more costly in the end.

The two specific parts Romney’s talking about keeping with his new plan are the under-26ers and the pre-existing conditions, because those are the biggest emotional ploys out of the whole thing that journalists can come up with. It’s not like he could have answered any other way.