Saturday, July 12, 2008

Romney on RomneyCare

Categories: Individual Mandates, Insurance Regulation, Massachusetts

Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, reflects on that state's one-year old health-care program. He praises the Bush Administration for granting a Medicaid waiver that enabled the program to get underway.

He lauds the program, despite the criticism it has received here and elsewhere, saying for Bay State residents, "there is no more worrying that if you lose your job, you lose your health insurance."

Romney points out that through Commonwealth Care, people making less than 300% of the federal poverty level buy insurance on their own, with pre-tax dollars. On their own, pre-tax? That's good.

Romney offers several items of praise for the program: Lower-than-projected costs, increasing the number of people with insurance, and having "tackled the free-rider problem."

He then gives several "mid-course corrections," including requiring that everyone in the program pay something.