I strongly disagree that doing nothing about medical care is the “conservative” position.
But I look forward to seeing Fred Thompson’s plan which will prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for uninsured people’s medical coverage WITHOUT requiring proof of ability to pay, and WITHOUT allowing people to die on the sidewalks of hospitals if they can’t pay for treatment.
Because we pay through the nose right now, and there is NO WAY any politician is going to advocate letting people die when medical treatment is available but can’t be paid for. You can tell people they have to go without cable, but you will NOT get the population to vote for letting people die simply for lack of insurance.
Romney’s original plan was not perfect, and what the legislature did to it made it worse. But it was based on a sound principle that in order to keep taxpayers from footing the bill, you need to ensure that individuals CAN foot the bill. And if that means taxing them if they don’t have insurance, and using that tax money to pay for their care when they show up without insurance, well better them than me.
The Mass. government coverage already had abortion (so do every state, and almost ever private insurance). Abortion is a fairly low-cost procedure so even if you had private insurance and asked for a non-abortion option, it wouldn’t cost less. Plus if you ended up needing a medically necessary and expensive abortion to save the life of the mother, if you had insurance that didn’t cover it, the taxpayer would pick up the bill, meaning we’d all be paying for abortion in some cases.
The abortion part of the bill wasn’t “controversal” in that it was something already mandated, and that already existed in medicaid, medicare, virtually all private plans, and the public employee plans in Mass. A $50 co-pay is typical of HMO co-pays.
BTW, that’s only ONE of the possible policies, and it’s more expensive. There’s a cheaper plan with $100 abortions that most people would purchase to save money, and a different type of insurance that uses percentages instead of co-pays.
THe point being that having paid for insurance, a co-pay isn’t a “bargain-basement” price. It’s how insurance works. You pay a lot of money, and then when you need treatment you pay a deductable or a co-pay.
If Mitt asked me what to do, I would have said to veto it, even though the veto would be overridden. But that again is because I have a much more restrictive pro-life position than Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson.
Compromise and negotiating once you win public office, is one thing. Your rhetoric borders on acceptance of liberalism and moderatism, as means to an end. If that means condoning the politics of socialism, so bit it. You’re all for it.
No wonder the anti-conservative, waffler and centrist pinhead Willard Mitt Romney is your hero. LOL
Romney could have blocked this enitire monstrosity. Government mandates are generally bad, especially iin the health care field. Governemnt cannot improve the best health care system in the world. It can only make it worse. RomneyCare proves the point.