Posted on 04/20/2010 6:30:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney must be tired of answering questions about his position on Obamacare, yet questions remain. We know he’s against it, but how does he square his opposition to it with his support for a similar plan in Massachusetts? His answer — what’s good for the states is not always good for the country — looks increasingly weak now that flaws in the Massachusetts model are coming to light. And yesterday, the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Moffit, an erstwhile supporter of the Massachusetts plan, declared in a Washington Post op-ed that Heritage’s support for the individual mandate, a central feature of both Romney’s plan and Obama’s, was mistaken. “Our research . . . has led us to realize our initial idea was operationally ineffective and legally defective,” Moffit wrote. “Well before Obama was elected, we dropped it.”
Moffit wrote that he first noted problems with the individual mandate in a Spring 2008 paper he published in the Harvard Health Policy Review. He did not officially renounce his past support for the Massachusetts plan, but he did use Massachusetts as an example of how the individual mandate fails to achieve its intended purpose. The problem with the mandate is that it has to be enforced — an idea that is unpopular and that few politicians are willing to see through. “In Massachusetts,” Moffit wrote, “the first state to enact an individual mandate with tax penalties and fines, the public authorities have already exempted approximately 60,000 persons from its terms.”
Consequently, the Massachusetts system experiences severe and debilitating “churn,” as those exempted individuals (and others who simply choose to pay the fine) sign up for health insurance a few weeks before they need a major procedure and then drop it after a few months. The Boston Globe reported that “In 2009 alone, 936 people signed up for coverage with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts for three months or less and ran up claims of more than $1,000 per month while in the plan.” Enforcement of the individual mandate “didn’t work as planned,” the Globe reported, and “consumers who work for small businesses have ended up shouldering a much larger burden.”
Romney’s successor, Gov. Deval Patrick, has announced a few tweaks here and there to address this problem, but nothing like the kind of enforcement that would be required to make the system work. That’s because, as Moffit noted in his Harvard esssay, “Politically, the pursuit of an individual mandate would require an insistence on a level of public coercion by unspecified means that does not yet enjoy anything close to a public consensus.” The enforcement mechanisms in Obamacare also vindicate Moffit’s view: The penalty for evading its individual mandate is relatively small; its constitutionality is suspect; and it might not even be enforceable.
I spoke with Moffit on the phone after the publication of his op-ed, and I asked him to elaborate on his observations about the individual mandate, particularly in the light of the problems Massachusetts has experienced. Moffit says that Romneycare was addressing a real problem — the nearly $50 billion in annual uncompensated-care costs that accumulate as a result of free emergency-room care for the uninsured — but that it has proved to be a “mixed bag.” Romneycare “reduced the uncompensated-care costs for hospitals,” he says, but Romney’s successor has failed to cut uncompensated-care subsidies. “Even though hospitals’ uncompensated-care costs went down, Patrick continued to funnel taxpayers’ money to them anyway,” Moffit says.
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However, the notion that it could be good for MA, but not for Texas, or other states, or all 50 states, the nation, is no mystery. It is called federalism. I am disappointed that there are so many pundits who can't seem to get the concept of federalism to permeate their thick skulls.
I remember seeing a video clip of Romney (when he was running for President) on 60 Minutes. Romney was asked by a perplexed interviewer about how Romneycare could be good for MA, yet Romney did not think it was good for the nation. Romney held firm that not all the states, or the 50 states, were the same. The 60 minutes guy brushed that off as though it were absurd.
Romney would certainly do the nation a service if he could explain federalism is such a way that even liberals could get it.
First, Romneycare is a disaster and any state trying to implement this type of healtcare will destroy healthcare. That said, Romney is right. There is a big difference between a state deciding to do it and the federal government doing it. This is a state issue and federal government oversteps its bounds when they force it on the states.
The Romneycare experiment failed in MA, it is clear now. His point is why make the same mistake twice.
There is something to be said for bowing to your constituents even if it doesn’t reflect your ideology. The Zero is not capable of that.
In addition, it was modified after he left office and the Mittster cannot be held responsibile for that.
Romney's problem is that, when confronted by a problem (billions of uncovered emergency room costs), his instincts led him to support a big, expensive government-imposed solution. We can quibble over why or why not Romneycare is better or worse than Obamacare, but it's that reliance on government to solve our problems that would prevent me from ever supporting Mitt Romney.
Federalism is a wonderful system and it's true that Romneycare is not unconstitutional in Massachusetts as it is in Washington D.C., but that simply begs the question. Romneycare is bad because it limits freedom rather than expand it.
I think he has a bigger problem. Sure, he’s intelligent and articulate, and, to be honest, fairly conservative on a lot of issues, but he can never just own up to something and say “I WAS WRONG.” If he could, he might get somewhere.
While “Romney Kare” is a disaster his argument is that it is a states right to make that kind of mistake and not in the province of a Federal Mandate to shove it down everyones throat. In that I agree.
The only reason Romney doesn’t like “obamacare” is because it’s not called “Romneycare”.
I disagree. People change positions all the time. It’s called learning, thinking, evolving, coming to understand. It’s also healthy. It’s what the man says in the here and now that matters most.
Exactly. bttt
I disagree with 1 and 2. Sorry. I hope I am allowed to disagree.
No they don't.
They don't live, devote their lives to and form a known political persona on a set of firmly held political beliefs for almost 60 years and then suddenly learn, think,and evolve into an entirely different package for a different type of primary election.
Mitt Romney put on an entirely different political suit one day, there was no evolving, or the softening of one or two positions, he became an entirely different person because it was necessary to fool a different set of voters. The man will say or do, or be anything, to gain power, and we don't even know what he wants with it,this is beyond issues, he is the kind of person that decent Americans are repulsed by, not driven to choose as our leader.
“Romney would certainly do the nation a service if he could explain federalism is such a way that even liberals could get it.”
Well since he speaks “liberal” so fluently, this should not be a problem.
I'm not rationalizing a flawed candidate. Clearly some people take a side on a candidate, and everything else follows. That could be you, but it is not me. I'm not providing a "rationalization for a flawed candidate," past or present. I'm championing Federalism.
You think Romney should preach Federalism to excuse his SOCIALISTIC RomneyCare?
No. I think he did advance Federalism in the past. It would be great if he, and others, would do so now.
I say SOCIALISTIC, because he forces everyone to get it or suffer a fine and then uses taxpayer monies to subsidize those who "cannot afford" to purchase the insurance.
I have never been an advocate for Romneycare. It was not advanced in my state. I don't know what I would have thought if I had lived in MA at the time it was advanced. I suspect it was pretty popular with the people of MA at the time. I will respect their right to screw up if they will respect the right of my state not to screw up.
There is more socialism in our states and nation than most people realize. Here is one case in medicine. Imagine that you wanted to start a medical school in your state. This could have been attempted at any time in the last 50 years. The process would require a business plan, obtaining financing, obtaining a site, lining up staff, etc. It would require one more thing, permission. If you could lick the first, real world, obstacles, you would most likely still be stopped because you don't have permission. Who's going to stop you if proceed without permission? Law enforcement. How about free enterprise in a free country? Forget it. Ours is a socialist nation composed of socialist states. If you don't have permission from state boards dominated by the doctors, you are stuck. They won't grant permission because they want to limit the number of doctors. They don't want the competition, and the reduced income. The doctors can't stop you from opening your school. So they get your state to stop you.
So how do you work out the underlying differences between the two political philosophies?
Understand that the concept of Federalism was instituted in our country as a complement to the idea of Limited Government.
For now, I will give credit where credit is due for those who understand, operate under, and advance federalism. By the way, it is my understanding that individual colonies supported and funded particular churches. I think that is (was) a mistaken idea, and can be seen as failing under the concept of limited government. Yet individual state sponsored religion remains a state's right, as a careful reading of the 1st Amendment shows.
I won't claim that I have reconciled all principles (states' rights, limited government, etc.). I don't think they are fully reconciled today, or ever have been.
As a simple matter of fact, Romney advanced Romneycare in MA, but refused to champion it for the nation. Why people cannot understand the distinction is a mystery to me.
Anyone who thinks government run healthcare to begin with is a problem for any conservative.
Romney should have never been onboard with the idea to begin with.
IT WILL NEVER WORK so why do it in the first place? Unless of course you are more Progressive than Conservative.
Why are you so willing to rationalize...the fact that Romney put it in to begin is enough to disqualify him for any serious discussion on anything. The man is an idiot.
You don't think that Romney lies about his past and changes his positions?
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