Posted by
on Friday, January 18, 2008 4:49:36 AM
Frm. Gov. Mitt Romney has stated many times that he wants to take his Massachusetts RomneyCare health plan national.
"Enrollment in the state's new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection."
SOURCE: http://BOSTON.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/18/success_could_put_health_plan_in_the_red/
Doesn’t this sound like a wonderful problem? The government subsidized health care is so popular that it is expanding the state's budget. Of course, this could never happen if we implemented this on a national level, could it?
"Romney's vaunted healthcare plan also disappoints. It forces individuals to purchase medical coverage and slaps the non-compliant with "tax penalties," as a state-government radio ad described them last November. These charges were $219 in 2007, equal to the personal exemption on Massachusetts' state tax. However, this year's formula could crank this figure up to $912. Businesses with at least 11 workers either must offer health insurance or face annual fines of $295-per-uninsured employee. This is consistent with Romney's statement at a January 5 GOP presidential debate: "I like mandates."
This program is run not by the free market, but by the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, a Romney-created government bureaucracy. For 2007, reports the Pacific Research Institute's Sally Pipes, RomneyCare is expected to have cost taxpayers some $619 million. That's $147 million and 31 percent above original projections.
Romney blames all this on tinkering Democratic state legislators.
"I don't know what's going to happen down the road as the Democrats get their hands on it," Romney told the National Review Institute. "I was a little concerned at the signing ceremony when Ted Kennedy showed up."
SOURCE: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12568
Please wakeup my fellow fiscons up! While Romney's plan may sound nice, it will only take a year or two before the government is running the whole thing. This is how the history of big government has gone. A good plan is implemented by government...government does not stick to the plan and it degrades into government taking the whole thing over.
Why is nobody talking about this?
Instead we like to ponder questions such as Romney whether is really pro-life when he says he is or whether Huckabee will really not raise taxes when he pledged not to. We are missing the boat and if we do not wake up soon and start asking the right questions, the party of the right will continue to act like the party of the left.