Ambinder on RomneyCare
I noted in my post below that early attacks on Gov. Romney will be in response to his healthcare plan. Marc Ambinder gives us a little reminder that RomneyCare isn’t the disaster some on the right have portrayed it as. It’s actually popular and getting good bang for its buck. We’re going to be fact-checking this stuff constantly for some time, so start getting your bookmarks ready.
The nation’s most ambitious experiment in universal health insurance is succeeding on its own terms, and has become fairly popular, a new survey minds. 96% of working age adults have health insurance in the state today, which is significantly higher than the national average. Also up: the percentage of people with private health insurance. It’s now as high as 70% among seniors. An Urban Institute study finds that 72% of state residents are happy with the effort.
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In calling it RomneyCare, I’m continuing the tradition of identifying the health care program by the chief executive who signed it into law. As Romney’s health policy advisers will tell reporters, Romney didn’t favor the mandate that Massachusetts Democrats added to it — Romney wanted people who refused to buy insurance to post a bond that would cover their emergency care. But he supported the package in the end. It is something that our all-or-nothing political system doesn’t tolerate: a government plan administered by private companies; a mixture of regulation and market incentives. A hybrid. (Remember — Sen. Edward Kennedy was a major Romney ally.)
The last part is important. Gov. Romney knew he didn’t have a perfect bill, but he knew he could do a lot of good by compromising a bit. Not everything in that bill was on Romney’s wish list. As a result of a little flexibility, a lot of Massachusetts residents have benefited. President Obama can learn from that. Instead he’s insisting on a trojan horse public option as a starting point and using a joint session of Congress to besmirch anyone who disagrees with him (under the guise of bipartisanship of all things).
~~~Thomas
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I think that in order for Romney to win on the issue of his Healthcare program he can’t push too hard to describe it as a screaming success. I read a piece where he said that yes, it cost more, but not too far out of bounds of what was expected, something like that. I think he needs to admit that the Mass. plan implemented on a national scale would be a disaster, but that they should glean from the successes of the Mass. project and work to correct it’s faults. Trying to defend the Mass. plan too much will kill his conservative credentials, trying to badmouth it will make it look like he ran something that was a failure. He’s got a fine needle to thread, I hope he can do it!