Posted on 02/24/2011 5:49:09 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Mitt Romney rejected Mike Huckabee's call for him to admit that the "RomneyCare" health care program failed, instead saying he's "proud" of "getting everyone covered" when he was governor of Massachusetts.
"Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered,” Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, told the Boston Globe, in the first direct response Team Mitt made to Huckabee's criticism of the health plan in his new book.
Fehrnstrom also put daylight between the Romney health care bill and President Obama's reform package, which is unpopular among voters and is the subject of several lawsuits by different states.
“What's important now is to return to the states the power to determine their own healthcare solutions by repealing Obamacare," Fehrnstrom added. "A one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn't work.”
The comments came after POLITICO reported that a chapter in Huckabee's new book, "A Simple Government," devotes two full pages to trashing RomneyCare and tethering it tightly to ObamaCare.
"Ever since the debate over (the national) program began, it’s been compared to RomneyCare, the failed statewide health-care program implemented by none other than my fellow GOP member Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts,” Huckabee says in the book.
“Any critical assessment of this program will show that it failed … and yet the Obama administration decided to emulate it in its pursuit of a national health-care program.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
“The hospital, Boston Medical Center, faces a $38 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in September, its first loss in five years. The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and stopped paying Boston Medical “reasonable costs” for treating other poor patients.”
I don’t know, but maybe you are someone else knows. Was the Boston Medical Center behind Romney-Care? I suspect that might be the case...especially the way pediatricians like to stick it in the ear of conservatives, but I don’t really know either way.
lie
Willard needs to take a flying leap to Kolob in his cork submarine
Is Mitt subject to Romney care or does he get the medical treatment that the most politicians have?
He seems to want out of the race this time. Hanging tough with his Romneycare will sink him for sure.
Don’t worry, she will.
Ahh come on!....Man up u capitalist bastards...if you were in it for the money...you'd have all been lawyers...
"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
“The Massachusetts Republican Party died last Tuesday.
The cause of death: failed leadership.
The party is survived by a few leftover legislators
and a handful of county officials and grassroots activists
who have been ignored for years.
Services will be public and a mass exodus of taxpayers will follow.
In lieu of flowers, send messages to Republican voters
warning them about a certain presidential candidate named Romney.”
- Boston Herald, 11/12/2006
"In 2006, while Romney was chairman of the National Republican
Governors Association - a group dedicated to electing more
Republican governors - his own hand-picked Republican successor
as governor lost badly to the Democrat, despite the fact that Republicans
have held the governorship in Massachusetts since 1990. Romney largely
ignored the Massachusetts elections and spent most of the time
during the campaign out of state building his presidential campaign.
He came back and publicly campaigned for the Republican candidate
the day before the general election!
“Locally, this is a rebuke to Mitt Romney and checking out within six months
after being elected and having accomplished almost nothing,”
[Jim] Rappaport [former chairman of the state Republican Party]."
- Boston Globe, 11/8/2006
"Governor Milt Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to out-of-state Republicans,
has passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced,
instead tapping registered Democrats or independents -- including two gay lawyers who
have supported expanded same-sex rights, a Globe review of the nominations has found.
Of the 36 people Romney named to be judges or clerk magistrates, 23 are either registered Democrats
or unenrolled voters who have made multiple contributions to Democratic politicians
or who voted in Democratic primaries, state and local records show.
In all, he has nominated nine registered Republicans, 13 unenrolled voters,
and 14 registered Democrats."
- Boston Globe 7/25/2005
Romney Rewards one of the State's Leading Anti-Marriage Attorneys by Making him a Judge
Romney told the U.S. Senate on June 22, 2004, that the "real threat to the States is not the
constitutional amendment process, in which the states participate,
but activist judges who disregard the law and redefine marriage . . ."
Romney sounds tough but yet he had no qualms advancing the legal career of one
of the leading anti-marriage attorneys. He nominated Stephen Abany to a District Court.
Abany has been a key player in the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association which,
in its own words, is "dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision
on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated."
- U.S. Senate testimony by Gov. Mitt Romney, 6/22/2004 P>
"Romney announces he won't fill judicial vacancies before term ends
Despite his rhetoric about judicial activism, Romney announced that
he won't fill all the remaining vacancies during his term - but instead
leave them for his liberal Democrat successor!
Governor Mitt Romney pledged yesterday not to make a flurry of lame-duck
judicial appointments in the final days of his administration . . . David Yas,
editor of Lawyers Weekly, said Romney is "bucking tradition" by resisting the urge to
fill all remaining judgeships. "It is a tradition for governors to use that power to appoint judges
aggressively in the waning moments of their administration," Yas said.
He added that Romney has been criticized for failing to make judicial appointments.
"The legal community has consistently criticized him for not filling open seats quickly enough
and being a little too painstaking in the process and being dismissive of the input of the
Judicial Nominating Commission," Yas said.
- Boston Globe 11/2/2006
By the same token, if one can conceive of and enact a socialist universal health care bill, one cannot call himself a conservative.
Looks as though Mitt’s paving the way for Christie to jump into the fray.
He has no choice. If tries to run away from it, he’s toast. He has to defend it, point out its differences and emphasize that it’s a state bill as opposed to a federal one.
He’s going to get beat over the head with it either way. He can’t leave himself defenseless and make his campaign an apology tour for RomneyCare. He has to stand up for what he did.
Yesterday’s legal action sets the stage for a showdown between state regulators and the health insurance industry.
Governor Deval Patrick has made reining in runaway health care costs a centerpiece of his administration and his campaign for reelection — contending they are stifling the capacity of small businesses to create jobs. At the same time, health insurers argue that government is forcing them to sell policies at a loss that is unsustainable as the costs of medical services climb.
Filing the suit were Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer, and the five commercial members of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan, Fallon Community Health Plan, Health New England, and Neighborhood Health Plan. All are nonprofit carriers.
The insurance carriers will go before a judge on Thursday in Massachusetts Superior Court in Boston asking for a preliminary injunction against Insurance Commissioner Joseph G. Murphy’s decision to reject 235 of 274 premium hikes proposed by the insurers.
Those rulings, which marked the first time the state has used its authority to deny health plan increases, were delivered last Thursday. They followed emergency regulations Patrick set requiring that rates be submitted 30 days in advance for review by regulators.
The rulings mean that health insurance rates established in 2009 for small businesses and individuals will remain in effect — rates the insurers say were not even sufficient to cover last year’s costs.
“What the commissioner did, we think, is going to create tremendous disruption in the marketplace,’’ said Dean Richlin, a partner at Boston law firm Foley Hoag who represents insurers.
Health insurance leaders are also contending the health premium rate rejections are a distraction from what they see as the real problem: steadily rising medical costs, particularly from health care providers and hospital groups that use their market clout to negotiate long-term contracts on favorable terms with the insurance carriers.
“We’re particularly distressed that this does nothing to contain the underlying hospital costs and doctor costs and drug costs,’’ said James Roosevelt Jr., the chief executive of Tufts Health Plan.
Barbara Anthony, undersecretary of the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, which oversees insurance regulators, defended Murphy’s rulings and said the insurers’ lawsuit lacked merit. She said state law gives the commissioner the right to reject rates that are excessive compared to the benefits provided.Continued...
“He’s on firm legal ground in disapproving the rates,’’ Anthony said.
The insurers’ complaint alleges that the state Division of Insurance acted illegally in three ways: by imposing a “rate cap’’ that is arbitrary and capricious; by attempting to peg rates to a measure — the medical consumer price index — that does not predict future costs; and by violating a requirement to enable insurers to charge adequate rates based on their projected costs in covering medical care.
“As a result of the commissioner’s action,’’ Richlin said, “the insurance companies will experience substantial and, in some cases, staggering losses. We estimate the collective loss among all of the insurers will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for 2010. There are some number that will face near-term solvency problems.’’
Three of the largest state health insurers — Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Boston, Tufts Health Plan of Watertown, and Fallon Community Health Plan of Worcester — posted operating losses for 2009.
Anthony said the insurers’ contentions were “specious,’’ and reflected how out of touch the industry is with the pressures ordinary citizens and businessmen face as Massachusetts emerges from recession.
“This is an outrageous response from an industry that claimed to be concerned about alleviating these escalating health care costs,’’ Anthony said. “I think it’s clear that the insurance companies are in love with the status quo where they get to continue to charge double-digit premium increases on small businesses and families.’’
In their request for an injunction, the health insurers are asking the Superior Court judge to let their proposed rate increases take effect or, barring that, require that the increases be collected from customers and put in escrow until the lawsuit is resolved. That way small businesses and individuals wouldn’t be faced with paying large lump sums later in the year if the judge eventually ruled in favor of the insurers.
While the suit predicts the plaintiffs “will suffer collective losses that threaten to amount to well over $100 million,’’ the actual impact will depend on a number of factors such as the strength of their reserves and their ability to negotiate more advantageous contracts with hospitals and physicians groups. Some insurers already have been rebuffed in recent efforts to renegotiate long-term contracts with such health care providers, according to insurance industry leaders.
“Insurance plans have multiyear contracts with providers,’’ said Lora Pellegrini, the chief executive of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, a trade group for insurers. “What incentive is there for providers to renegotiate contracts?’’
Catherine Bromberg, a Massachusetts Hospital Association spokeswoman, said she was unaware of discussions between insurers and individual hospitals about reopening contracts.
Insurers are required to maintain financial reserves to cushion them against losses, but such reserves won’t protect them indefinitely if they are not permitted to cover their costs, the carriers said.
Jon B. Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which represents 3,100 retailers and restaurants, said his members are hoping the judge rejects the insurers’ arguments so they can be spared further rate increases they can ill afford. “Just as they’re fighting this in the courts, they’re fighting our efforts to get group discounts for small businesses,’’ Hurst said.
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.
IT SEEMS MITTS GREAT HEALTHCARE PLAN/NIGHTMARE WANTED THE INSURERS,DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS TO EAT THE COST AND WORK FOR FREE OR JUST TAKE WHAT THE STATE WANTED TO PAY.THIS IS THE MA.HEALTHCARE NIGHTMARE COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU WITH OBAMACARE.
Buh bye, mitt, you RINO loser.
>instead saying he’s “proud” of “getting everyone covered” when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Well, Mitt old boy.
You had best find a way to repudiate it & find it fast, or just go ahead and join the democrat party because you are never holding office again as a republican. Bank on it
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