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The centerpiece of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s health care platform is the creation of a national health plan and a new agency to help individuals purchase private health plans. “We now face an opportunity – and an obligation – to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday’s health care debates,” Obama said in a speech posted on his Web site. “My plan begins by covering every American.” Obama’s health care platform also includes keen oversight of the health insurance industry, prescription drug reforms, cost-saving strategies, increased medical research and disease prevention. Thomas Gustafson, PhD, senior policy...

DEROY MURDOCK Just as most folks maintain a healthy distance from those with contagious diseases, John McCain would be wise to keep Mitt Romney at arm's length. Choosing him for vice president would infect McCain with the worsening symptoms of RomneyCare. The former Massachusetts governor's signature "achievement" already looks destined for the emergency room. Bay State political observers call RomneyCare "The New Big Dig." Like downtown Boston's notorious roadway project that ran $12.2 billion beyond its $2.6 billion budget, RomneyCare is becoming a huge fiscal sinkhole... RomneyCare unmasks its architect as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) whose vast, bungled,...

Barack Obama has a plan for fixing the American health care system. Posted on his website, he has laid his plan out for everyone to review. Only, he has left out a few details. Obama starts by naming three distinct issues with American health care. First, there are a lot of people who are without insurance. According to Obama’s website, there are “47 million Americans” without insurance, including about 9 million children. But there are a few details he forgot to mention. Out of that 47 million people, about 10 million of them are not Americans. According to page 29...

Gearing up for 2009, liberals are eager to claim Massachusetts as a Valhalla of health reform. Their enthusiasm is apparently evidence-proof. Even Mitt Romney, who should know better, took to these pages recently to proclaim, "Health-care reform is working in Massachusetts." Shortly after Mr. Romney's self-tribute, Governor Deval Patrick wheeled out a new $129 million tax plan to make up for this year's health spending shortfalls. Yet partisans are cheering the cost overruns as a sign of success.

Guest Column BUYER BEWARE! What You Would Get In a Vice-President Romney Hint: a demagogue who has already changed history) When Ann Coulter endorsed Mitt Romney she called the former Massachusetts governor "manifestly our best candidate" -- though the paper for which she is "chief legal correspondent," Human Events, ranked Romney the #8 RINO (Republican In Name Only) in the nation in 2005. GOP establishment pom pom girl Laura Ingraham and water boy Sean Hannity evangelize Romney on their radio shows as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Curiouser and curiouser! Romney the wallflower bats his eyelashes and coyly pretends...

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent a marathon day raising money on Monday, and it went well: after events in Virginia and Washington, D.C., the campaign and the Republican Party pulled in more than $2 million... Finally, there was praise for his opponent-turned-supporter, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “There’s nobody who represents me better today than Mitt Romney,” McCain said. Are you listening, governor? That could be the sound of a vice presidential offer coming down the road …

<p>Back in 1961, Ronald Reagan spoke out against socialized medicine in the above clip. His words are as true today as they were back then. Pass this one along to all your friends, especially those who have bought the "feel good" propaganda foisted upon us by Hillary Rotten Clinton, Michael Moron and other Leftists.</p>

When then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney signed into law the nation’s most far-reaching state health care reform proposal, it was widely expected to be a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. In fact Governor Romney bragged that he would "steal" the traditionally Democratic issue of health care. "Issues which have long been the province of the Democratic Party to claim as their own will increasingly move to the Republican side of the aisle," he told Bloomberg News Service shortly after signing the bill. He told other reporters that the biggest difference between his health care plan and Hillary Clinton’s was "mine got...

As he campaigns across the country this week in anticipation of the Super Tuesday primaries, Mitt Romney probably won't say much about the storied health-care plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. For one thing, it is hard to portray yourself as the ideological heir to Ronald Reagan when your health-care plan is virtually indistinguishable from the one proposed by Hillary Clinton. But another reason Romney may not want to talk about his plan is that it has been a dismal failure. The Massachusetts plan was supposed to achieve universal health coverage while controlling costs. As Romney wrote...

On Sunday, December 16, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romny told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, “The plan we put together in Massachusetts I think is working in Massachusetts.…I happen to like what we did. I think it’s a good model for other states.” Merrill Matthews here offers a different view.

This morning on "This Week" on ABC, she was pressed about garnishing wages (to pay for her Health Insurance program) and dodged it a few times before saying, "George, there will be an enforcement mechanism, whether it is that or something else." So she is open to the idea of garnishing wages. Her words. Go ahead Conservatives, stay home or vote 3rd party. Please let us know who you are afterwords. We will really want to know who you are.

As he campaigns across the country this week in anticipation of the Super Tuesday primaries, Mitt Romney probably won't say much about the storied health care plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. For one thing, it is hard to portray yourself as the ideological heir to Ronald Reagan when your health care plan is virtually indistinguishable from the one proposed by Hillary Clinton. But another reason Romney may not want to talk about his plan is that it has been a dismal failure. The Massachusetts plan was supposed to achieve universal health coverage while controlling costs. As...

[On] Monday, [] a Senate health committee is expected to vote against Mr. Schwarzenegger’s widely promoted and potentially legacy-defining bill on universal health care. A “no” vote would effectively kill the bill, which would also need voter approval to become law. The bill, which would offer coverage to millions of uninsured Californians, passed the State Assembly in December but began to stall in the Senate last week after the state’s legislative analyst raised questions about its financing and two prominent Democrats announced they would vote against it. Chief among many Democrats’ concerns was the proposal of a so-called individual mandate,...

Spending on the state's landmark health insurance initiative would rise by more than $400 million next year, representing one of the largest increases in the $28.2 billion state budget the governor proposed yesterday. more stories like this Patrick's budget challenges lawmakers on casinos Patrick wants state workers to pay higher portion of health care State workers would see hikes in health costs under Patrick plan Patrick wants education chief in Cabinet N.H. Democrats, Republicans sharply divided on healthcare, poll finds The biggest driver of the cost increase is projected growth in the number of people signing up for state-subsidized insurance,...

A key state senator said Tuesday that he'll vote against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care expansion bill, leaving the measure's fate in doubt on the eve of its first Senate hearing. The bill's supporters also got some bad news from the Legislature's budget analyst, who said the costs of running an insurance pool that would be established under the program could exceed revenues by as much as $1.5 billion a year in the fifth year of the program. That would lead to an overall deficit in the fund of $4 billion under the cost scenario the analyst said was most...

Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh This article is from TOS Vol. 2, No. 4. [Snip] Conclusion We have seen that the myriad problems with American health care and health insurance are the result of decades of government interference in the markets for these goods and services. The systematic violation of the rights of health care providers and insurers to freely produce and trade goods and services has created a dysfunctional system that has harmed countless providers, insurers, employers, and patients. We have also seen that more government control of medicine and health...

Massachusetts residents who remain uninsured in 2008 will begin facing monthly fines based on their age and income, according to new regulations unveiled by the Department of Revenue on Monday. Here are how much different people may have to pay: — The highest fines are leveled at those earning three times the annual federal poverty level, or $30,636 for an individual. Individuals aged 27 or older who are over that income threshold will pay the top fine of $76 a month, or $912 a year. — Married couples earning more than $41,076 would each have to pay the top fine...

Massachusetts health insurers are predicting their rates will increase by about 10 percent next year for most residents covered through employer health plans, marking the eighth consecutive year of double-digit premium hikes. Increases will range from 8 percent to 12 percent, depending on the type of coverage, according to a Globe survey of the region's major insurers. For some, however, the increases will be slightly lower than in previous years. Tufts Health Plan, for example, said most members' premiums will go up by 8 percent to 9 percent, compared with 10.2 percent to 11.5 percent this year. "I see no...

Governor Deval Patrick is expected to announce tomorrow that he is launching a major effort to tackle healthcare problems - including soaring costs and the elusive goal of quality - through a coordinated approach across state government. The state "compact" on health will bring together agencies overseeing prisons, law enforcement, finance and insurance with healthcare behemoths insuring millions of state residents and workers, according to three individuals who have been briefed on the plans but requested anonymity because they were asked to keep the information confidential until tomorrow. The administration declined to comment in advance of the announcement. The goals...

To comply with the new state insurance law, a Burger King franchisee in Boston expanded coverage from just his salaried staff to all full-timers. To control his costs, he halved the share he pays. Only three of the 27 newly eligible employees took the insurance; others say they can't afford it. more stories like this A large human service provider toughened eligibility for coverage in response to the new law, requiring employees to work 30 hours a week to qualify. That took away the option of work-based coverage for nearly 100 low-wage workers, but made them eligible for cheaper, state-subsidized...

Link Only Due to Copyright: http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/NEWS01/71219008/1079

When the 50-year-old Brazilian painter heard the new state health reform mandates everyone to have health insurance by Dec. 31, the man - who had been uninsured for six years since he immigrated here - felt he had to do something. An illegal immigrant, the man couldn't do much. Though the mandate applies to everyone, including undocumented immigrants, the new law doesn't offer health insurance programs for them, other than Free Care or MassHealth Limited, for emergency services only. The man, who identified himself by his first name's initial and last name, A. Ribeiro, thought about continuing going without insurance,...

Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected. Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare. The charges are assessed retrospectively, so in most cases the money has long since been spent on salaries, medicine and supplies. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of...

If you need a good idea of what government-run healthcare would mean to you and your family, look no further than Medicare, or the wrangling taking place in Washington surrounding Medicare funding. With much of the media focused on the Democrats' efforts to expand eligibility and funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), much less publicity has been given to Congressional deliberations on Medicare. While SCHIP is a backdoor effort to grow government-run healthcare, the Medicare funding process is a good example of what happens once politicians get to decide how much and what sort of healthcare participants...

BOSTON, Nov. 20 — As the Democratic presidential candidates debate whether Americans should be forced to obtain health insurance, the people of Massachusetts are living the dilemma in real time. A year after Massachusetts became the only state to require that individuals have health coverage, residents face deadlines to sign up or lose their personal tax exemption, worth $219 on next year’s state income tax returns. More than 200,000 previously uninsured residents have enrolled, but state officials estimate that at least that number, and perhaps twice as many, have not. Those managing the enrollment effort say it has exceeded expectations....

For the past two years, analysts have been asking how fast-growing WellCare Health Plans of Tampa has been able to make so much money running government health plans for the poor and elderly. Now government investigators may be asking the same thing. On a rainy Wednesday morning, more than 200 federal and state agents swarmed WellCare's campus on Henderson Road in Tampa, forcing employees onto the sidewalk and into their cars. Steven Meitzen, 51, who arrived at WellCare about 9:40 a.m. for a job interview, said he was initially told it was a bomb scare. "Later on, I talked to...

Just before the holidays, I had my annual dinner with longtime friends — all political liberals. My friends' son, now in college, asked me a health care question as I munched on a dish of short ribs: "If you're against government health care insurance, what should poor people do? What, just screw 'em?" Having known him since birth, I was taken aback by not just the question. I knew that, like Custer, I sat surrounded by liberals. But the harshness of the question surprised me. Because Republicans, like me, reject the John Kerryesque argument that "health care is a right...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Tuesday for capping medical malpractice lawsuits, a point that drew loud applause at an Iowa medical school. Romney focused on health care in an address to some 500 students and faculty at Des Moines University. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney pushed through a plan aimed at reducing the ranks of uninsured in Massachusetts, a group once estimated at up to 500,000. Massachusetts residents had until last Thursday to sign up for health insurance or face possible penalties — a milestone Romney's rivals gleefully noted. "I believe we have to...

Enrollment in the state's new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection. An aggressive outreach campaign by the state, hospitals, community groups, and advocates, including an extensive push in the last few weeks, has put enrollment on a path that could reach nearly 180,000 by June 30.

It’s one thing to pass a law, hold a press conference, and boldly declare to have solved an intractable public policy problem, such as the lack of universal health insurance. It’s quite another to actually have the so-called solution deliver as promised. That’s the lesson that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney relearns every day, as he woos voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, distancing himself from his past health care handiwork even as those he left behind in Massachusetts struggle to make the plan work. Romney’s Massachusetts plan has been troubled from the start, performing particularly well with members of...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Romney sharpened the sell for his health care plan here at Des Moines University. For the first time, he gave a time frame on its follow-through, and he provided a bit more context about his own background on the issue before touring the Skiff Medical Center in Newton. “I just want to underscore something,” he said, concluding his address at the university, “we can get everybody in this country insured…. My estimate that from the time you would put in place this program, pass the legislation necessary to put in place this program, within four years...

The debate over how to overhaul the nation's health-care system is underscoring a dramatic chasm between the two parties, as Democrats battle over which candidate will most quickly expand health insurance to cover all Americans while GOP contenders compete over who can best minimize the role of both government and employers in delivering care. The landmark legislation that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney signed last year as governor of Massachusetts requiring everyone in the state to have health insurance is now at the center of disputes in both nominating contests.

If there is anything that qualifies Mitt Romney to be president of the United States, it is his record on health care and his record of leadership. If there is any one thing that might keep him out of the White House it is his Mormonism. The United States will spend nearly $2.4 trillion on health care in 2007, and that number is expected to rise to $4 trillion by 2015. But, high spending does not translate into broad access to health care. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 45 million Americans – about 15 percent of the population...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney anticipated questions about health care when he called on a friendly Nevada business group Friday. It was the question on immigration that surprised him. "I didn't expect that to be ... a major concern of the chamber," the former private equity businessman and Massachusetts governor said after giving his stump speech and taking four questions from a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce round-table. "But it's a concern across the country," Romney said. "People are tired of all the talk and lack of action to stop illegal immigration." Immigration is a major concern for businesses nationwide...

Romney plays down health care As Massachusetts governor, he tackled universal coverage As governor, Mitt Romney signed the country's first comprehensive attempt at universal health coverage. On the presidential campaign trail, he has not put health care reform at the top of his agenda, nor has he embraced the central goal of the Massachusetts plan - universal coverage - as an appropriate target for the country. The story sounds like classic stump-speech material. A business leader and friend of then-Gov. Mitt Romney suggested he could make his mark if he solved Massachusetts's health care woes. Romney, a former consultant, took...

Fifty-five percent of Massachusetts employers believe a provision of the state's health insurance law requiring businesses with 11 or more workers to offer health insurance or pay a penalty should be expanded to all companies, according to a poll published on Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs, the Boston Globe reports. Under the law, businesses with 11 or more full-time workers are required to pay an annual fee of up to $295 per employee if they do not offer to pay at least 33% of individual employees' health insurance premiums. According to Jon Gabel, a senior fellow at the University...

Enrollment in the state's new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection. An aggressive outreach campaign by the state, hospitals, community groups, and advocates, including an extensive push in the last few weeks, has put enrollment on a path that could reach nearly 180,000 by June 30. Even if signups slow, the program will probably still be over budget - a victim of its own success - because the state has already enrolled nearly as...

As social conservatives decide who to support in the 2008 primary, let me suggest that an application of the immortal pass/fail test of the 1980 Reagan-Carter debate is particularly apropos for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Applying that test to Romney on the two signal issues for social conservatives, and two of the centerpieces of Romney's campaign, Right to Life and Traditional Marriage, what does the record reflect? On Abortion: When Romney took office in 2003, under the law in Massachusetts, enacted by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Moe v....

Presidential candidate Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee Senator and Law & Order actor, slammed Mitt Romney for supporting and signing into law the Massachusetts Health Plan that allows for women to have an abortion with no restrictions for a $50 co-pay. Columnist David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, whose founder Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, a pro-choice candidate, for president, analyzes the contradictions of Romney’s abortion stance. Brody writes that “the problem that Romney continues to have on abortion is that it’s hard for him to criticize Giuliani, Thompson or anybody else on the issue because he has his...

Responding to the National Right to Life Committee's endorsement of Fred Thompson, Paul Weyrich suggested that Thompson's backers greased some palms. "I think in all probability the Thompson people were engaged with the National Right to Life people in financial dealing," Weyrich told the Washington Times. That's a pretty tough charge and almost certainly not what Romney's campaign wanted their big social conservative "get" to suggest (at least not publicly). Sensing opportunity to win more points from their own big "get" (the group's nod) Thompson communications director Todd Harris unloaded: "Gov. Romney is new to the pro-life movement and his...

Today’s Washington Times has a bit of an eye-opening comment, high in its story of the reaction to the National Right to Life Committee’s endorsement of Fred Thompson. Paul M. Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, said the endorsement "makes no sense," and speculated that it had been motivated by money. "I think in all probability the Thompson people were engaged with the National Right to Life people in financial dealing," said Mr. Weyrich, who has endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. "In the past, the Republican Party has funded National Right to Life, and...

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton announced a $110 billion health care reform plan Monday that would require all Americans to have health insurance. "People are dying because they couldn't get the care they needed when they were sick," says Sen. Hillary Clinton. Clinton unveiled her "American Health Choices Plan," during a high-profile speech at a hospital in the key campaign state of Iowa, surrounded by supporters, American flags and campaign banners. "Here in America people are dying because they couldn't get the care they needed when they were sick. "I'm here today because I...

With the end of the year fast approaching, uninsured Massachusetts residents are scrambling to sign up for health care plans and avoid being among the first to face tax penalties for failing to get insurance before Dec. 31. It's a deadline with practical and political implications. For the still-uninsured, failure to meet the deadline could translate into a loss of their personal exemption when they file their 2007 state income tax returns in April -- a $219 hit. For Mitt Romney the political hit could be far bigger. The specter of residents in his home state being penalized for not...

First, I humbly ask before you comment to read my entire post. Then feel free to comment however you wish. I support universal healthcare, even if it means for the government to either mandate or subsidize medical care. I would prefer a mandate, as opposed to an unneeded subsidy, since people should be responsible for their own health. Here's why: I'm sure you are aware of the jist of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986. Essentially, what the law says is that regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay, hospitals must provide stabilizing care...

Nearly two dozen Colorado legislators were briefed Wednesday on the status of health care reform plans being developed by a legislative commission charged with finding ways to insure all Coloradans. The Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform is only two weeks away from finalizing a fifth and final proposal, one that resembles a plan started by Massachusetts last year requiring that people purchase insurance and prevent companies from rejecting sick applicants. While the commission stressed that it still is working out details of that final plan... A commission subcommittee working on the fifth proposal previously suggested providing subsidies to...

August 27, 2007, 9:00 a.m. Dr. Romney Goes NationalA Republican health-care plan. An NRO Symposium Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney laid out his health-care plan on Friday in Florida. The former Massachusetts governor has earned both contentious criticism and accolades for working with Democrats to reform health-care there while governor. National Review Online asked a group of health-care experts to take a look at what he had to offer Friday. Here are their reactions. Michael F. CannonMitt Romney just discarded two of the most counterproductive components of his Massachusetts health-care reforms. Romney’s law is known for (1) its requirement...

August 24, 2007 -- After months of flip-flopping to cover up his record as Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is back in the Sunshine State today to roll out his so-called health care plan at the Florida Medical Association's Annual Meeting in Hollywood, FL. In his latest flip-flop, Romney's plan "departs significantly from the universal health care measure that he helped forge as governor of Massachusetts, reflecting the conservative audience he must now appeal to in order to win the Republican presidential nomination." [The New York Times, 8/24/07] Mitt's plan is filled with political calculations, enabling him to "avoid answering...

They say former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is currently leading the field among Republican presidential contenders here in Nevada ... The year before he won his governorship, Romney, a gun-grabbing socialist, ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which turned into a handy excuse to install a tax-subsidized boondoggle light rail system, even though it had been rejected by local voters nine years before. He and his gang then refused to allow Utah residents who had jumped through every (unconstitutional) hoop to acquire a concealed-weapon permit to show up armed at his big United Nations Winter Games, because...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney yesterday proposed a state-by-state approach to health care, saying the plan he enacted as governor was right for Massachusetts but not necessarily for the rest of the country. Mr. Romney, who served one term as Massachusetts governor, said the federal government should free states up to experiment and try to achieve broader health care coverage, but he rejected imposing Massachusetts-style mandates on the rest of the country. "A one-size-fits-all national health care system is bound to fail. It ignores the sharp difference between states and it relies on Washington bureaucracy to manage," Mr. Romney said....

Mitt Romney fudged or abandoned his positions on a few issues to get elected governor of Massachusetts and he began doing the same to get elected president while he was still serving as governor. Part of that process is misrepresenting his role in the development of state programs and mischaracterizing the programs themselves. A prime example is the state's health care reform effort. The Republican candidate asserts on the campaign trail that he developed a plan that provides health insurance for all without government involvement, which is patently false. Unfortunately a national press corps more concerned with sizzle than steak,...