- Gov. Mitt Romney doesn't just want to make health insurance universal. He wants to make it compulsory.
In an opinion piece published in today's Herald, the possible presidential contender pushes the ball way upfield in the healthcare debate by calling "for a personal responsibility principle" in health insurance.
"Everyone must either become insured or maintain an adequate savings account to cover their medical expenses," Romney writes.
- Response from experts to the headline-grabbing move was decidedly mixed.
"He said what?" remarked an astonished Michael Cannon, director of healthcare policy at the free-market Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. "It sounds like he's running for the (liberal) wing of the Democratic Party."
Cannon called the plan a blow against personal liberty. He rejected the analogy with compulsory third-party auto insurance for drivers because "people are free to take the bus instead..."
...Paul Wingle, spokesman for the Massachusetts Hospital Association, argued that the problem of "free-riders" extends beyond individuals.
He said that one of the state's biggest underpayers is the commonwealth itself, which picks up little more than 70 percent of its mandated Medicaid bill.
Critics noted the governor would have to solve one other problem too. How would such a law be enforced?
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