“Hazards of the Massachusetts Individual Healthcare Mandate – 2007!”
| yes mittmites 2007! read all about it – go on over to cato.org and check out this Glen Whitman 07 article – hmmmm wonder why other states have not copied this TERRIFIC plan over the past almost decade!! by Mitt the healthcare wizard??? 😦 |
Publius Prime 
Hahaha!!! Nice try, but you’re wrong! 😦 Keep diggin for the facts! You’ll soon find the truth buried beneath all of the anti-Romneyites’ talking points! 🙂
On April 12, 2006, Governor Mitt Romney signed the health legislation. Romney vetoed eight sections of the health care legislation. The legislature promptly overrode six of the eight gubernatorial section vetoes, on May 4, 2006, and by mid-June 2006 had overridden the remaining two.
yes haha my point exactly – romney creates legislation that he knows is a no go then it gets watered down in the back & forth!! hellooo?? brilliant way to govern 😦 huh – now he even blames the people of Mass w/ the “thats what they wanted” or how bout “it just wasn’t done right but it wasn’t my fault i vetoed!!” I’m only the Governor! – how freakin’ paaaathetic !! is this the kind of “leadership we want & need???? just like obama, this is what you get w/ a coreless – eogdriven- moderate – “wannabe” leader 😦 PS if this blueprint and concept was so great why haven’t other states who have full gov control & could “do it right” – not copied it for many ayear??? hmmmmm……….
WOW you actually highlight my point of concern beautifully!! – Mitt was GOV and it was his responsibility to foresee and plan competently for the future welfare of his state was it not?? he authored this plan that you would hope he realized full well what would become of it once put through the legislative sausage grinder… so what comes out is full of pitfalls and actually creates problems… wow brilliant leadership there mitt!! full display of your competence and foresight!! i know, let’s make you president 😦 – here’s the deal: as a moderate, he “led from behind” (sound familiar??) and compromised and watered down knowing full well the outcome – he didn’t care because he wanted it done and was OK w/ this outcome and ALL the negatives too! so dont kid yourself! he had no intention of going back & fixing or he wouldve stayed on as GOV (and originally done better forecasting & planning) but he had his sights set on presidency after only 3 YRS!!!! and wanted a signature accomplishment to pad his resume – he’s been running and blaming others ever since!! he didnt think obamacare & the albaross its become for him would happen, he incessantly blames others from the state legislature to his repub opponents – he thinks he can talk his way out w/ his slick rhetoric and he takes no responsibility for the Mass HC mess other than say “Oh heres some good & bad things” – thats a RefFlag to me (and sounds like obama method huh!) – why didnt you stay & fix it then you shmuck or better yet get it right the first time you punk! he is VULNERABLE and he knows it and when someone like a newt or rick gets into the weeds and starts making these connections and pulling back the curtain you see Mitt Machine go Blitzkreig because if given too much light would sink him in conservative primary!!! but now he’s going to be this great compromiser and get things done right in DC!!!!! you kidding me!! he’ll get used & abused in the middle mush and not lead squat! he’s NO PRINCIPLAED like Reagan because he HAS NO CORE principlas!!!how many examples do we need in his VERY SHORT Gov career he compromised ON PRINCIPAL & FLIPPPPFLOPPPPED!!!!! or vision & OWNERSHIP andACCOUNTABILITY – and this whole state and federal HC issue and him in this context spotlights this beatifully – THAT IS MY PT 14alln all for MiTT!! so THANK U for reinforcing it 🙂 ps go back and stick the article I sighted and not slip in all your heritage pro-mitt stuff…. nice try though 🙂 and keep ROCKIN’IN THE FREE WORLD!!!!
The Cato Institute is libertarian organization, and in this 2007 article you cite, the author includes some of his bias mixed in amongst the facts of the article. Quite funny indeed. However, his opinions aside, the author supports Mitt Romney’s statements that the expensive riders attached to the legislation have increased the costs of the premiums.
Also, you may want to know that while the Cato Institute you choose to cite from advances itself as “libertarian” and may be, they advocate positions that support many liberals on the left, including support for civil liberties, liberal immigration policies, and equal rights for gays and lesbians.
stick to the FACTS of the article there 14allmitt – don’t slip in your mittens talking points – mitts plan stinks as this article pts out but beyond this – mitts approach & leadership is the REAL CONCERN and INDICATOR of just the type of leadership fraud we get w/ him – like i say he put something up that HE KNEW wouldnt fly BUT GAVE HIM LOTS A COVER & MILEAGE that he’s STILL tryin to use!!!! face it, one of his biggest “assets” is one of his biggest FLOPS!! hmmmm sounds an awful lot like someone else huh ?? 🙂 not to mention he sounds identical to this same con who BLAMES EVERYONE BUT HIMSELF!!!!!!! but yeah lets make hime prez too….. brilliant 😦 and lets keep his cazrs in place cuz mitt HIRED one of them in MASS TOOOOOO!! oh boy we screwed! 😦
lets not attack the messenger (cato) now 14all&alwaysmitt – you sound like obama 😦
WOW!!! RIGHT ON!!! THE ARTICLE YOU CITE COMPLETELY AGREES WITH AND MAKES MITT ROMNEY’S POINT!!!! 🙂
Remember what Romney has said while being criticized on the Massachusetts healthcare:
There are some good things about our plan, there are some things I’d do differently, and if I were the governor, it would be running a whole lot better.
Romney’s original health reform proposal envisioned a statewide health insurance exchange that would have offered a variety of plans with a wide range of benefit levels — a free market plan designed to promote personal choice included benefits focused on value such as preventative and primary care, emergency services, surgical benefits, hospitalization benefits, ambulatory care, and mental health benefits.
What happened was that a Massachusetts democratic legislature overrode Romney’s vetoes on 8 parts of the bill. These bureaucrats added in all sorts of costly mandates to the affordable “basic coverage” plan, and now includes all sorts of things that are not the basic or preventative care as originally intended. (Required treatment for Autism was the most costly mandate added.) These State-required mandates now include 28 additional benefits that all of the State health insurance providers must include which has driven up the cost of coverage. This was not Romney adding changes that added to the cost of coverage, but instead it was the democratic legislature.
During implementation, the mechanisms put in place for affordable basic care were altered in ways that changed the design and the outcome of the original plan. Even with the policy compromises required to pass the health care reform bill in 2006, the final version still included mechanisms that could have helped in the short term—if they had been implemented.
(This information is from the Heritage Foundation.)
THE ARTICLE YOU CITE AGREES AND STATES WHAT ROMNEY HAS BEEN SAYING!!! 🙂 WE NEED TO FOCUS ON HEATH CARE PRICES AND THE COST OF HEALTHCARE INSURANCE PREMIUMS BY NOT ALLOWING ADDED COSTLY MANDATED BENEFITS INTO AFFORDABLE BASIC HEALTHCARE PLANS:
“People who lack health insurance nevertheless receive health care in this country, because hospitals and health care providers are unable or unwilling to turn them away. When recipients don’t pay for their care, the rest of us end up footing the bill one way or another. Individual-mandate advocates contend, plausibly enough, that we should make the free riders pay for themselves. None of this means that the uninsured are not a problem. But the problem is not that they cost the rest of us too much. One reason uncompensated care is such a small fraction of health care spending is that uninsured people simply get less health care than others. (Though they do get some; health care and health insurance are not synonymous.) So if the real concern is making health insurance and health care available to those who are in need, we should focus on health care prices and insurance premiums.”
“Rising insurance premiums, as a result of a growing mandated benefits package, will fuel greater public dissatisfaction with the health care system. Further regulations that hitchhike on the individual mandate will only make matters worse. Ironically, free markets rather than government will likely catch the blame, thus fueling demand for more intrusive interventions into the health care market.
“Under an individual mandate, legislators and bureaucrats will need to specify a minimum benefits package that a policy must cover in order to qualify. Each medical specialty, from oncology to acupuncture, will pressure the legislature to include their services in the package. And as the benefits package grows, so will the premiums.”
“The content of the law will be determined by the legislative process. The “basic” package might initially be minimal, but over time it will succumb to the same special-interest lobbying that affects every other area of public policy.”
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN MASSACHUSETTS!!! AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT ROMNEY IS REFERRING TO WHEN HE SAYS HE WOULD BE RUNNING THINGS A LOT DIFFERENTLY IF HE WERE THE GOVERNOR THERE. 🙂
“The architects of the Massachusetts plan, recognizing the affordability problem, have already effectively admitted defeat on this front: they have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured from the tax penalties for noncompliance. That’s arguably another one-fifth reduction in the already small fraction of health care spending affected by the mandate.”
THE LAST PARAGRAPH OF THE ARTICLE SUMS IT UP, AGAIN AGREEING WITH WHAT ROMNEY HAS SAID 🙂 ABOUT SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS AND LOBBYISTS DRIVING UP COSTS, AND MAY BE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE FUTURE WITH NEW CHANGES TO HEALTHCARE:
“A better approach to health reform would focus on removing, or mitigating the effect of, existing mandates that drive up insurance premiums. States that genuinely want to help the uninsured ought to repeal some or all of their mandated benefit laws, allowing firms to offer low-priced catastrophic care policies to their customers. If special-interest pressures hamper this solution, the federal government could assist by using its power — under the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause — to guarantee customers the right to buy insurance policies offered in any state, not just their own. That would enable patients to patronize firms in states with fewer costly mandates. As an added bonus, state legislatures might feel pressure to ease regulations to attract more insurance business from out-of-state customers. Removing state-imposed coverage mandates that have been shown to drive up premium costs would do far more to expand health care coverage than adding any new mandates ever could.”
GOOD JOB FINDING THE FACTS, GUITARGOD! 🙂