Critical Mass (Steyn on Romney)

National Review ^ | March 17, 2010 | Mark Steyn

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Critical Mass   [Mark Steyn]

Kathryn, Grace-Marie Turner's analysis is well worth reading. I sympathize with Mitt Romney (his health-care plan was really the only big signature legislation of a very brief time in executive politics), but what he did is part of the problem, not the solution.

According to what he's told at least a couple of NR audiences I've been among, he sought to solve a problem that doesn't exist — ie, that the uninsured are using emergency rooms as their family doctor, and supposedly the rest of the populace has to pick up the tab for that in increased health-care costs. In fact, ER use by the uninsured is in rough proportion to their percentage of the population, and the rest of the populace has to pick up a far greater tab for the under-reimbursement of doctors by Medicare. In other words, Mitt misdiagnosed the disease, and his prescription was a bigger dose of it:

The result is all the problems familiar to patients in socialized systems — longer wait times, fewer doctors, overstretched emergency rooms — with the uniquely American wrinkle of dramatically increased costs. Mass. residents now pay 27 percent more than the U.S. average.

If costs are the issue, it isn't very difficult: As has been noted here many times, third-party transactions are always more expensive, whether the third party is an insurer or the government. Most people in the waiting room don't care whether the procedure costs $200 or $20,000: Their only concern is whether the third party will grant access to it. If you mandate universal third-partyism, your costs by definition will increase. As a businessman, Mitt should have known that. So it reflects poorly on his judgment.

And it's worse than that, because, of those citizens forced by Mitt to acquire insurance, nearly 70 percent are getting it all but totally subsidized by Massachusetts taxpayers. That's a good example of another general principle — that, even if you accept his characterization of the plan, wonkish non-partisan technocratic reforms will invariably be turned leftward by the statist bureaucracy.

The Massachusetts State Treasurer now says Masscare nationwide will bankrupt America. No doubt. But first it will drive out doctors and private insurers, providing the perfect pretext a half-decade down the road for politicians to step in and move to full-blown single-payer governmentalization. Obama wants that. So, from his point of view, Obamacare makes sense. Mitt presumably doesn't want that. So what was he thinking?

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Steyn nails it...and Mitt.

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Ping

[9YearLurker]

This punctures what part of the Myth myth is still floating out there. Kudos to Steyn and the others. I hope this gets prominent play at FR.

[MissH]

Great article - I am not a Mitt fan and Steyn is absolutely correct on this -

[novemberslady]

Bkmk

[ConservativeMind]

This is an excellent, brief insight into the RomneyCare situation.

Kudos to Mark!

[Diogenesis]

Where is RINO Romney
as the Dems push through ObamaCARE?

Answer: The RINO coward is hiding, sending out his saboteurs
against Gov. Palin and all conservative GOP stars again,
selling his ghostwritten book, and attacking the “tea party”.

[ichabod1]

We are so screwed.

[Utah Binger]

Mark Steyn hits the Mark on the Morgbot Mittster.

Or should I say Mittster Slickster!

Used Car salesman extraordinaire!

[Diogenesis]

Mitt RomneyCARE (D, RINO): "I'm not running as the Republican view
or a continuation of Republican values.
That's not what brings me to the race.
(Backstabber Romney Video, accessed 9/19/07)

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party
 over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged
 to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support.
Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates
wouldn’t make any sense at all.""
--  President Ronald Reagan

---

Mitt RomneyCARE (D, RINO): ”I'm very clear I think, to the people across the Commonwealth
my "R" didn't stand so much for Republican as it does for reform."
(Video, accessed 9/19/07)

"A political party cannot be all things to all people.
It must represent certain fundamental beliefs
 which must not be compromised to political expediency
or simply to swell its numbers."
--  President Ronald Reagan

[rintense]

Romney is an easy target. Which is why so many on the left want him to the GOP nominee.

[rintense]

Mark is always spot on when it comes to deep analysis of the issues. Love it when he subs for Rush.

[dirtboy]

It looks like he is bitch-slapping fawning NRO Romneybot Katheryn Lopez

Speaking of his Massachusetts record: It seems clear that he is not going to apologize for trying to tackle the health-care problem there. Their final plan was clearly imperfect, but it's more right than what Washington is doing now. He'll be stubborn in defense of it because governors tackling health-care reform — with the input of the likes of the Heritage Foundation, by the way — is to be encouraged.

[Diogenesis]

Carpetbagger Mitt “He walked with MLK” RomneyCARE (D, or whatever you want):
“Who cares about Massachusetts people? I never let them vote anyway.
And I live in La Jolla, now. So, screw those stupid servants.
Let them play with their bananas.”

“Cahill bashes (MA) state -- and national -- health care reform law
State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, an independent candidate for governor, today offered
a wide-ranging and scathing criticism of the state’s universal health care law, saying it is
bankrupting Massachusetts and will do the same nationally, if a similar plan is passed in
Congress.
"If President Obama and the Democrats repeat the mistake of the health insurance reform
here in Massachusetts on a national level, they will threaten to wipe out the American
economy within four years,” Cahill said in a press conference in his office.
Echoing criticism leveled by Congressional Republicans in recent weeks, Cahill said, “It
is time for the president, the Democratic leadership, to go back to the drawing board and
come up with a new plan that does not threaten to bankrupt this country.”

---

“In his defense, Romney admitted to Fox that about half of the real costs of “extending
coverage to the uninsured” (aka forcing young, healthy people to buy expensive
insurance they don’t need) is covered by federal tax dollars. In other words, as expensive
as it is, without federal subsidies it would cost even more.
So when there’s a federal Obamacare plan, who do we taxpayers turn to for our
subsidies? China? The United Nations? Mr. Spock and the United Federation of Planets?”

---

“Mr. Romney's subsidized coverage is meanwhile doing what entitlements do: crowding
out private insurers, compounding the cost explosion, walking the state toward rationing.
So long as the former governor clings to these central points of his health plan, he's on
the wrong side of free-market policy and public opinion.

This isn't going away for Mr. Romney either, which is why he'd do better by writing off
his own plan as a mistake that Democrats have made worse, and replacing it with a
proposal that deregulates and reforms the private market to lower insurance costs
(thereby achieving greater coverage).”

---

From CATO (the whole article is worthwhile): “Before RomneyCare was enacted, estimates of the number of uninsured in
Massachusetts ranged from 372,000 to 618,000. Under the new program, about 219,000
previously uninsured residents have signed up for insurance. Of these, 133,000 are
receiving subsidized coverage, proving once again that people are all too happy to accept
something “for free,” and let others pay the bill. That is in addition to 56,000 people who
have been signed up for Medicaid. The bigger the subsidy, the faster people are signing
up. Of the 133,000 people who have signed up for insurance since the plan was
implemented, slightly more than half have received totally free coverage.

---

“Health Care Speechwriter for Edwards, Obama & Clinton Now Without Health Insurance”
I'm a critic because what Washington is talking about doing
has made health insurance unaffordable in Massachusetts.

[HighlyOpinionated]

The Origin of Mass

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It looks like he is bitch-slapping fawning NRO Romneybot Katheryn Lopez

K-Lo isn't the editor at NRO now...I bet her panties are in a twist to see this article on the site, LOL. Mitt may decide it's not worth funneling any more money to NRO causes.

Go Mark!

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Mark better be careful... NRO doesn’t take kindly to anything but Hosannas for the Mittster.

[444Flyer]

“..Answer: The RINO coward is hiding, sending out his saboteurs
against Gov. Palin and all conservative GOP stars again,
selling his ghostwritten book, and attacking the “tea party”.”

He is a master at skullduggery. It got him where he is today.

[editor-surveyor]

The uninsured are not going to emergency rooms in any significant numbers; they are the ones that have figured out that doctors and hospitals are the essence of the problem, not the solution, WRT ‘health.’ They shorten your life by providing the poisons that rapidly attack and age our bodies.

The whole “healthcare” issue is a scam.

[C19fan]

Why the hell is Kathry Lopez a Romney Kool Aid drinker? I would think Romney’s pro-choice past would automatically disqualify him from Lopez’s point of view.