BREAKING: ROMNEYCARE DECLARED MASSIVE FAILURE

[FourScore]

Sat Apr 14, 2012 at 07:01 PM PDT
BREAKING: ROMNEYCARE DECLARED MASSIVE FAILURE
by jpmassar

In a crippling blow to the concept of health care mandates, socialism, and the peoples' right to pay ever-more-exorbitant premiums, officials in Massachusetts announced today that

Massachusetts residents who participate in the state's healthcare program are seeing their insurance premiums going down by 5 percent, officials say...

...those participating in the state's Health Connector Commonwealth Care program are enjoying a second year of reduced premium payments courtesy of the healthcare reform act signed into law by then Gov. Mitt Romney...

Reduced premiums? Why thats, that's... un-American!

There is no way that Governor dog-on-car and Obamacare-is-socialism willingly signed this horrible legislation; legislation that is bringing Massachusetts residents agony little short of a descent into hell itself. Democrats must have captured him and handed him over to space aliens to be tortured. Yeah, that's it. Space alien torture is responsible for Romneycare.

The story continues, but it only gets worse...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/14/1083481/-BREAKING-ROMNEYCARE-DECLARED-MASSIVE-FAILURE-

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Two other data points

RomneyCare has cost a fortune in Massachusetts because it heavily subsidizes private health insurance for folks who weren't covered before. Way, way more than initial estimates. Probably a worthwhile cost since more folks are covered, but still a fortune.

Before RomneyCare, Mass already had the lowest uninsured rate in the country. So national RomneyObamaCare will have proportionally way more people to subsidize, so it will cost even a larger fortune.

[rgbecker]

7. Manny! Have you got a link for all this information?

Good Stuff!

[EFerrari]

8. Yep, this diary is misleading.

MA pays way more than the national average per capita. So, what is the 5% a reduction of? What people in MA pay? That still would mean they pay above the national average.

[Marrah_G]

9. It's a 5 % reduction in what people pay into Commonwealthcare

Commonwealth care is like a state Medicare program that you pay into depending on your income up to 3x the poverty level. Currently I pay 116 dollars a month for insurance through them.

[EFerrari]

10. This is what I was referring to (there are hot links at the link).

"Predictably, the plan did little to slow the growth of health costs that already were among the highest in the nation. A state report last year found that per capita health spending in Massachusetts was 15 percent above the national average. And from 2007 to 2009, private health insurance premiums rose between 5 and 10 percent annually, according to another state study.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/massachusetts-tries-to-rein-in-its-health-care-cost.html?pagewanted=all

[The Second Stone]

2. Romney is going to have to run against Obamacare, which is really

scaled up Romneycare, and will pretty clearly not repeal his positive contribution to American politics in the unlikely event he is elected. A vote for Romney is a vote to kill Republican opposition to Obamacare. A vote for Obama or abstention is a vote to keep the Republican Party opposed to Obamacare aka Romneycare. Only the Supreme Court can bail the Republicans out of this circular firing squad.

[Fumesucker]

4. Yes, Republican ideas are the best, look at the huge decline in the medical bankruptcy rate

Rmoney care has dropped the medical bankruptcy rate in Mass from 59.3% to 52.9%.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21396505


In 2009, illness and medical bills contributed to 52.9% of Massachusetts bankruptcies, versus 59.3% of the bankruptcies in the state in 2007 (P=.44) and 62.1% nationally in 2007 (P<.02). Between 2007 and 2009, total bankruptcy filings in Massachusetts increased 51%, an increase that was somewhat less than the national norm. (The Massachusetts increase was lower than in 54 of the 93 other bankruptcy districts.) Overall, the total number of medical bankruptcies in Massachusetts increased by more than one third during that period. In 2009, 89% of debtors and all their dependents had health insurance at the time of filing, whereas one quarter of bankrupt families had experienced a recent lapse in coverage.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Affordable. Care.

is an ACT.

[Surya Gayatri]

6. You may want to stick a "sarcasm" smilie

on this for the ironically challenged.