Romneycare Is Still Haunting Republicans

The Wire ^ | 05/06/2014 | ARIT JOHN

[SeekAndFind]

Romneycare, that awkward reminder that Republicans tried to expand health care first, continues to haunt the party. On the same day that Massachusetts announced it was scrapping their busted Romneycare exchange, a new Harvard study shows that the mortality rate dropped in Massachusetts after Romney's version of Obamacare took effect in 2006.

The Annals of Internal Medicine study tracked deaths in the state from 2001 to 2010 and compared the rate to counties in New England with similar demographics. It found that the mortality rate dropped by 3 percent in the four years after the health care expansion, according to The New York Times. Nationwide, if the mortality rate dropped 3 percent, that would amount to 17,000 lives. Areas with poor and previously uninsured individuals benefited the most from health insurance and saw the sharpest decline in deaths.

In other words, Romneycare has made a very strong case that Obamacare will save lives. While this study doesn't definitively prove that access to health insurance improves health — it's possible there was some factor the study didn't account for — it's the most compelling argument yet. "It seems pretty clear that expanding insurance coverage will lead to gains in saving lives," Benjamin Sommers, the Harvard University School of Public Health assistant professor who led the study told Vox's Sarah Kliff. "What I don't think you can argue anymore is that health insurance doesn't matter."

[Orangedog]

Romneycare is so not an issue. Not at all.

You're right. It certainly never was an issue for the hypocrites who called themselves conservatives while carrying water for that pro abortion, anti 2nd amendment, big government fascist...because it's cool when you do all that at the state level.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You jumped in support for Romney and romneycare with both feet and went after conservatives and Free Republic

Now you're just being retarded. I did no such thing on Romney and romney care….you can't point to a single, not a single damned time where I was pro Romney Care or pro Romney. You're just an unhappy pathetic troll. And FTR, there are a LOT of folks on FR who are NOT conservative on many issues….that's not "went after" Free Republic, that's just admitting that a lot of folks don't understand what the hell a free republic is…...

[ansel12]

Wow, you do go after people with personal attacks and rage. Your post 12 sure seems defensive and hostile towards FR, it was so strange to post what you did, tying in conservative hostility to romneycare and Romney with claiming that FR would call you secretly pro-abortion, and a rino, you just brought all that up out of nowhere.

To: cherry
is a state wants to try such things, let them...aren't we if nothing else all for STATE'S RIGHTS???? its a far, far, far thing from the feds mandating the whole country….

Shhh….you can't say that on Free Republic. I mean, it's true, but you can't say that without being called a RINO, secret pro abort, Karl Rove conspirator.
12 posted on 5/6/2014 7:49:35 AM by C. Edmund Wright

[Political Junkie Too]

Romneycare, that awkward reminder that Republicans tried to expand health care first...

Really? Even though it was a decade after Hillarycare in 1993?

-PJ