The Truth About RomneyCare
Why is it that Mitt won't talk about the whole story on RomneyCare. Keep in mind that this is the policy he refuses to walk away from... price controls and all.....
PJ Media Paul Hsieh, MD:
Now that Mitt Romney has shown himself politically vulnerable after Iowa, more people are taking a closer look at his claims about the “RomneyCare” health care plan he helped create as Massachusetts governor. In this interview from April 2010 which recently recirculated last month, Romney attempts to draw some distinctions (as well as acknowledge similarities) between his RomneyCare plan and the national ObamaCare plan. One of the alleged virtues of RomneyCare over ObamaCare is that Romney’s plan does not contain “price controls,” whereas ObamaCare does. But how does this stack up against reality?
Romney’s claim may have been technically true at the time the plan was enacted. But according to the New York Times, this was a deliberate choice on the part of Romney and the Massachusetts lawmakers when they passed the law in 2006. They aimed for “universal coverage” first, and decided to worry about controlling costs later. In other words, they knew that costs would be a problem but chose to kick the can down the road. It’s like borrowing money from a loan shark then saying, “At least I don’t owe him any money right now!”
But even before Romney’s 2010 claims, the state had already implemented some price controls. As Michael Tennant notes, “Requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions at the same rates as healthy individuals – another feature of the Massachusetts law that Romney praises — surely qualifies as a price control.”
Similarly, requiring insurance companies to provide numerous mandatory benefits (including lay midwives, orthotics, and drug-abuse treatment) and then denying insurers’ requests for rate increases to cover their increased costs is another form of price control.
Yet another price control considered (but ultimately not implemented) was a proposal to compel doctors to accept patients covered by the state’s “Affordable Health Plans” at government-set payment rates or else lose their state medical licenses.
And because costs continue to rise faster in Massachusetts than in the rest of the country....
Read the rest HERE.