Say Anything Blog

I’ve been saying for the last several days that while the Democrats’ plan for a government health care plan may be stuck in the mud they’ll probably come back with some new plan that, though it doesn’t contain a government health care plan in it, will still push more people onto existing government health care programs through mandates and price caps aimed at knee-capping the private health insurance industry.

James Pethokoukis reports on just that happening in Congress right now.  And what’s scary is that what the Democrats want is exactly what Mitt Romney did to health care in Massachusetts.

[Analyst Daniel Clifton of Strategas Research] thinks President Obama may get the chance to sign an $800 billion (over 10 years) bill that would contain features such an individual mandate to buy health insurance, subsidies up to 300 percent of the poverty limit to purchase a regulated plan through a health insurance “exchange”, and an expansion of Medicaid.

Obama might even get his commission that would try to determine what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals — now that the Congressional Budget Office has determined it would pretty much be powerless.

As one lobbyist put it: “I would see this as mostly a symbolic victory (for Republicans), as the Dems can get most of what they want without calling it a public option. Frankly. it’s pretty close to the Massachusetts model.”

Ah yes, the Massachusetts model. The state passed sweeping reform in 2006 under Governor Mitt Romney. What would a similar approach mean for America?

Well, there would be a lot fewer uninsured people. Massachusetts has halved the number of people without health insurance, with just 2.6 percent not currently covered.

But the reform has been far less successful bringing down costs. For starters, original cost estimates for Commonwealth Care projected the program would cost $400 million in 2008 and $725 million in 2009. The actual numbers were $628 million in 2008 and $869 billion for this year (with some costs estimates of $1 billion or more).

Moreover, health insurance premium costs continue to rise at a rapid clip of 9.4 percent a year, compared with 7.7 percent for the United States on average. As the Urban Institute found: “Health spending in Massachusetts is higher than the United States on average and is growing at a faster rate. Furthermore, health insurance premiums are growing even faster than health care costs in the state.”

What amazes me is that there are still “conservatives” out there who think that Mitt Romney is a limited government leader who would make a good President.  In light of what Romney did to health care in his home state, he is clearly not a conservative and is not fit to be at the head of any limited government movement.

But this move by Democrats is a real threat.  Because there are a lot of Romney-style, not-so-conservative Republicans in Congress right now who would be more than happy to accept a “compromise” and a symbolic victory like this from Democrats.  They get to claim that they killed government health care, but we all get stuck with more government mandates on health insurance that is going to make that insurance more expensive, both in terms of premiums paid and taxes paid, and drive more of us on to government health care.

Republicans need to get a clear message from their conservative constituents: No compromise on health care.  Unless we’re talking about a bill that makes the government less involved with the health care industry, none of them have any business voting for it.