Tuesday, June 21, 2005

He's all heart.

Soon-to-be-ex Massachusetts Governor Mitt "Mittens" Romney has come out with his version of universal health care. According to an article by reporter Brett Arends in today's Boston Herald titled Pay up or get out: Gov reveals health plan,
    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.
Just to make my motives crystal clear here, my mission is to help save the country at large from the nitwittery that is Mitt.
    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?
Shrubby not quite incompetent enough for you? You may just have found your man.

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