Is the "ultimate conservatism" of the individual mandate...
...kinda like being a "severely conservative" governor of a blue state?
If that's the case, why doesn't his campaign just run this ad?
Oh, right..."Paid for and authorized by the Massachusetts Democratic Party"
Year after year after year have shown that RomneyCare hasn't worked in Massachusetts...and no amount of hemming and hawing around the issue, even with Megyn Kelly, is going to distract from the fact that Mitt pushed this plan as a model for the national one, which the Democrats picked up and ran with...
I again find myself in complete agreement with theRightScoop:
Once again he dodges. Instead of explaining it, he just reverts to his ‘current’ position and acts like this is some old tired act that we’ve been through over and over. But we wouldn’t be going through it over and over if there clearly wasn’t a truth disparity between his words then and now. He clearly supported it then and is now saying he was never for a federal mandate. This is why I don’t trust him. He hasn’t sufficiently explain his flip-flops for me and there’s no guarantee he won’t flip-flop again.
ADDENDUM: Oops. The Washington Times reports more bad news for Romney and the state he left Massachusetts healthcare in: Massachusetts cost hikes of Romneycare could go nationwide with Obamacare.
...there’s growing support for a “global budget” model, under which primary care physicians would receive annual lump sums for each of their patients - regardless of how little or how much care they needed.
The move toward global budgets highlights the failure of Massachusetts’s 2006 health reform plan to make health care more affordable. Because the Bay State’s plan served as the template for President Obama’s health reform package, the consequences of that failure could soon be felt nationwide.
A new report from researchers at the University of Minnesota details the magnitude of Massachusetts’ health reform catastrophe. ...The study revealed that the share of insurance premiums for family coverage paid by the average worker jumped more than 10 percent since 2006. Half of respondents said that they were spending more on health coverage in 2010 than 2009. And a quarter weren’t confident that they could afford care the following year.
About 1 in 4 respondents reported delaying treatment because of concerns about cost. That share is up from 2006. And 1 in 5 adults had problems paying medical bills - the same percentage as in 2006. “There was no sustained improvement in problems paying medical bills,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers concluded by stating that the “pre-2010 status quo is not a sustainable option for Massachusetts or the nation.”
Some policymakers believe that global budgets are the answer to this problem. Because doctors would receive a flat annual fee for each patient, they’d have a direct financial incentive to keep their patients healthy - or more cynically - to limit the care they provide.
In 2006, then-Gov. Mitt Romney assured his constituents that “the costs of health care will be reduced” if his health reform package passed. President Obama made essentially the same assurances prior to the passage of his reform package, pledging that it would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.”
Mr. Romney’s promise has proven false. And there’s little doubt that Mr. Obama’s will end up similarly untrue.
Half a decade into its health reform experiment, Massachusetts is flailing under unsustainable health costs. Absent change, the Bay State offers a preview of what the rest of the country has to look forward to.
