Mitt Romney's Health Care Plan: is it Socially or Fiscally Conservative?

A look at Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan that he passed in his last year as governor of Massachusetts.

What does Mitt Romney think about his health care plan?

First, he is very proud of it. As he stated in a early Republican presidential debate "I’m not going to give the Democratic legislature credit for the plan I helped build. So I want to let you know I’m very proud of what we did in Massachusetts, and I think it’s a model that other states can adopt in some respects."(link)

According to Co-Chairs of the Plan, Congressman Tom Price and Tim Murphy, "More than any other presidential candidate, Governor Romney actually has a record of putting conservative principles to work in health care." (link)

Oh really. Let's take a good look at Governor Romney's health care plan and judge how conservative the plan really was.

• Problem one: what happens if you don't want to pay for health care? Well, well... "As for the requirement on individuals, those who don't get coverage would first lose their personal income tax exemption. Eventually, they could face a yearly fee to the state equal to half of the lowest-cost available insurance plan." (Boston Globe, April 4, 2006, Mass. bill requires health insurance)

Conservative huh? Methinks not but let's move on.

• Problem two: Romney's plan mandates wasted money through useless mandates and drives up the cost of health care. Congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter said regarding Romney's Mass. Health Care plan.

"I think the Governor’s plan goes in exactly the wrong direction, because while it allows for private health insurance, it has lots of mandates. He has a good piece of those 1,000 or so mandates that drive up the cost of health care.That means that every single plan in the governor’s state has to have certain things. It’s got to have, for example, fertility coverage. Well, what if you’re 90 years old? We may appreciate Governor Romney’s optimism … but you may not need fertility coverage. Those 1,000 mandates that we have throughout the States, where we do have mandates health insurance plans, is driving up the cost of health care by about 35 percent."

• Third problem. Romney's health care plan gives a $50 copay for those seeking to have an abortion murder their child. Click on the image below to see the provision in the plan that mandates this. So in effect, Romney mandated that Massachusetts taxpayers fund abortions. When did killing babies become a conservative principle?

  

In closing, Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research organization said in 2007, "Democratic candidates are going for proposals that have broad resemblance to the Massachusetts plan."(link)

No wonder....