Posted on 03/10/2009 12:15:01 PM PDT by pabianice
This morning while I was making breakfast and flipping through channels without looking, I stumbled upon the CNN Morning News. CNN was at the beginning of a glowing review of Massachusetts’ mandatory universal healthcare law, signed into law among shrieks of joy from the Left by none other than Mitt Romney while he was governor of the commonwealth and thinking about a run for president. (why are all these nutball national healthcare laws pushed by multi-millionaires who have their own private clinics?)
According to CNN, the plan is a huge success, now providing medical insurance for 97% of the state’s population (including, but unmentioned, the estimated 18% of the population who are criminal aliens). The report went on to praise the plan while editorializing that anyone opposed to ObamaCare is, at best, a racist moron hatemonger, and at worst, well, a racist moron hatemonger who listens to Rush Limbaugh. .
What CNN was careful not to mention is that MA universal healthcare is an unmitigated disaster. This has been confirmed by none other than The Boston Globe Workers’ Circle, that hotbed of spoiled trust babies, lunatic liberals, a newsroom one standard deviation below of norm for adult IQs, and gaggle of professional America-haters. According to the Globe,
0 More than 200,000 in MA are still without health insurance
0 Some employers are so evil that they still refuse to give gold-plated health insurance to all employees – at employer expense, of course
0 Even after all that, the program is unaffordable to many, in that as much as 32% of the under-the-table salary earned by a criminal alien may have to be paid towards his family’s health coverage, and he may even have to be responsible for copays! (the horror!)
0 The estimated cost has been shown to have been – ahem – “a bit low.” It is now costing Massachusetts upwards of $ 1.3 billion a year, four time the original estimated cost, and cost growth continues to explode (related fact the Globe didn’t bother to mention: MA is currently $2.1 billion in the red – most of it from universal healthcare). As the Globe socialists reluctantly admit, this “is not sustainable.” (Duh!)
0 MACare has done nothing to assure access to good care, despite the ‘punishing cost of paying copays’ (ten to thirty dollars a doctor’s visit). The article notes that “…access to care is also affected by the uneven distribution of healthcare dollars between primary and specialty care, and between community hospitals and tertiary care hospitals…”
The reporter ends by recommending that, to solve these problems, everyone in the US simply be put on Medicare. Reportedly “…a bill before Congress, the United States National Health Insurance Act, would provide more comprehensive coverage for all. The bill includes doctor, hospital, long-term, mental health, dental, and vision care, prescription drugs, and medical supplies, with no premiums, copayments, or deductibles…” After making this insane, impossibly costly demand, the author ends by upping the Insanity Index another notch: Under ObamaCare, “…People would be free to choose doctors and hospitals, and insurance would not be tied to a job. Costs would be controlled because health planning in a national health program can reestablish needed balance between primary/preventive care and high-tech tertiary care. A modest, progressive tax would replace what people currently pay out of pocket. This program would pay for itself by eliminating the wasteful administrative costs and profits of private insurance companies, and save $8 billion to $10 billion in Massachusetts alone.”
Coffee came out my nose upon reading this claim. And I missed the next several minutes.
Massachusetts continues to hemorrhage tax payers as its wealthy Liberals pursue ever more insane plans and will lose one or two seats in 2010 (unless ACORN steals the seats back, of course). If you want to see Obama’s America in 2011, look to Massachusetts. Governor Deval Patrick is Obama’s Mini-me and the Great and General Court of Massachusetts is Pelosi’s fantasy Congress. Patrick is raising the gasoline tax to 42 cents a gallon, the nation’s highest. Despite his pro forma denials, he will also impose a mileage tax on all people who drive in MA, by taxing residents at each annual vehicle inspection and by installing transponder gates at all highways leading into and out of the state. In DC we have a new, utterly unqualified president who nastily insults are greatest allies, who lies as second nature and has violated almost every campaign pledge, and whose greed for personal power rivals that of the last century’s worst tyrants. And the Liberal Press wonders why Americans are beginning to bury their money in the back yard.
Of all the things to like about Romney (and there are, imho) this health care fiasco jumps out as a huge red flag.
How, how could a conservative of any type not have vetoed this? Romney not only failed to veto it, he signed it into law. A spectacular lapse of judgement.
“How, how could a conservative of any type not have vetoed this?”
Because the competing DEMOCRAT plan was going to an even bigger disaster (By many magnitudes) than this one, and every major media outlet in the state was screaming for it.
I think that was a big problem - how could a Replican who survived in Massachusetts be attractive to conservatives nationwide without some major “repositioning” on issues?
I did like Romney for a number of reasons before this Program was signed into Law, but your post has it exactly right.
He still should have stuck to principes and vetoed it
Furthermore, the only conclusion I can draw from his behavior is that he is a weak man.
Because the competing DEMOCRAT plan was going to an even bigger disaster (By many magnitudes) than this one, and every major media outlet in the state was screaming for it. That's the same logic the Three Stooges used to vote for the Porkulus plan. We made it a little better, so instead of an Earth-shattering disaster it will just be a collosal disater.
He was the govenor. The most powerful politician in the state. He had the bully pulpit. He had the veto. Saying he had to sign it into law because he was afraid of the Democrats doesn't win him any points.
IMHO, the best thing Romney could do on this one is say "I screwed up and I learned my lesson."
The thing is...almost all of these problems were forecasted before the healthcare act was passed.
I was listening to NPR about a month ago and this topic came up. They were interviewing some guy who found the whole thing a ‘mess’. He was prepared to pay for basic coverage but couldn’t find anyone who would offer a package that would pass the state’s test...for the price he could afford.
“I think that was a big problem - how could a Replican who survived in Massachusetts be attractive to conservatives nationwide without some major “repositioning” on issues?”
He was a one term govenor. Survive to do what? If he had fought tooth and nail as govenor for conservative positions it would have helped his presidential run.
Hoghlights:
double the cost in two years
no reduction in uninsured
lower medical care for the poor, they can't afford the co-pay
read the report!
suggest the PDF version, but I could not get to link
www.pnhp.org/mass_report/mass_report_Final.pdf
Health care costs were already high before Romney Care because of illegals and a high number of welfare cases.
Massachusetts is drowning because of the debt owed to the big dig and public employee pensions.
Example the MBTA has a policy of 23 years of full retirement benefits (80% of pay) and full medical coverage. That is a person who began working at the T at age 18 can retire at age 41 collecting full retirement benefits immediately.
The pension abuse is rife with examples like this and even the Boston Globe is getting in the fray with a pension scheme story in today's paper.
In conclusion Romney Care includes these rampant public employee early retirement cases. It's hard to quantify how bad it really is until these quasi government agencies are forced to open their books.
There are definite problems in Massachusetts but to lay the blame solely on Romney Care would be a great injustice. Government employees would love this red herring but as you can see it's just the tip of the iceberg.
He killed his career [as a conservative] the day he signed it. I'll never vote for a guy who cheats on our Constitution 'a little'.
Would have been better to let the outrageous Dem plan go 'boink': We might have been a republican state by now. Guys like Romney turn up the heat under the pan 'just a bit'...and a lot less than the progressive wants to. But the result is the same. No more, thanks. Had enough of Ted-Light.
So is this the reason Romney is for the plan on a national basis as well?
Ugh.
The republican party is dead. Graham, Mitt, et al...they're democrats!
A conservative doesn't sacrifice principle. Smart people know what socialism does to a nation and free citizens. So, 99% of the elected pubbies are stupid, or willing to do 'small evil' in the name of keeping a great gig: they're evil...little things...big things.
Never again. I will vote principled conservatives. None? Staying home on Tuesdays.
But I hate his socialized medicine antics.
Please, I beg of you. Don't sell Governor Romney short.
He not only didn't veto this huge government power grab, and he didn't just sign it into law, but long after it turned out to be a huge heaping pile of you-know-what, he was and is proud of it. Proud of signing it, and proud of having helped write it.
From Mitt's own two handsome lips: I love it. It’s a fabulous program. I’m delighted with the fact that we worked together across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, to find a way to get health care for all of our citizens that’s affordable and that’s portable. I helped write it and I knew it well, and this is a country that can get all of our people insured with not a government takeover, without Hillarycare, without socialized medicine. Instead, get the market to do its job. Let people have health care that they can afford. Get the market to do its job. Let people have the opportunity to choose policies in the private sector. We didn’t expand government programs. We didn’t raise taxes. There was no government takeover.
2007 GOP primary debate, at the Reagan library, hosted by MSNBC May 3, 2007
To answer your question:How, how could a conservative of any type not have vetoed this?
A conservative would have vetoed it, but of course, Mitt Romney is not a conservative.
And he’s not shrill!!! lol
The benchmark has been moved so far left that I see nothing but a corrupt "Two-Party Cartel" with none protecting the taxpayers. A pox on all of them.
Many here in Mass. would argue that the most powerful politician in the state is the Speaker of the House.
I do agree with your last line...it would be great if admitted his mistake.
“Many here in Mass. would argue that the most powerful politician in the state is the Speaker of the House.”
Georgia had one of those speakers (Tom Murphy) that ran the state for decades, so I understand your point. Still, the govenor has tremendous power and influence, even under that type of situation. I really don’t think it is an excuse for any govenor of a state to say they had to go along with something because the speaker of the house insisted.
When you get to be govenor it is time to grow a pair and fight. A good analogy would be Harry Truman. A machine politician his entire life (he got every position he ever had, even VP, because of a political machine.) When he unexpectedly became president, he stood up to the stood up to the political machine bosses that thought they had lucked up and gotten a puppet in the White house. He told them thanks, but go to hell. He was president now and had bigger responsibilites than paying back old favors.
Understood.
I have a lot of sympathy for those in Massachusetts who have to cope with this.
My fear is that the rest of us will be joining you in a similar mess.
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