Mitt Romney is the favorite of one slice the electorate-those who relish perpetual, fundamental cognitive dissonance.
And it all starts with his own healthcare legacy in Massachusetts. How bad it is was seen in the first debate. While everyone was oohing and aahing over his "win" what was so striking is that he was actually able to both take credit for RomneyCare and vowed to repeal it in one sentence.
You talk about pivoting. In one sentence he gives the Right what it wants-repeal; while at the same time reassuring the Center that he's no werewolf, he's a compassionate guy: after all, he did pass RomneyCare.
While his attempt to distance RomneyCare from ObamaCare was very disingenuous, it is also notable that with the Romney-Ryan plan to blockgrant Medicare out to the states, Romney's Massachusetts health care will slowly run out of funds:
"Months after the GOP primary came to an end, Mitt Romney finally grew comfortable touting his Massachusetts health care law, even though he couldn’t really use it effectively as an asset on the campaign trail."
“[D]on’t forget — I got everybody in my state insured,” Romney said in an interview three weeks ago. “One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there’s anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.”
"But there’s a tragic plot twist in this father-son reunion tale. Though he clearly takes pride in the accomplishment — and as recently as 2008 had hoped to run for president as a candidate uniquely suited to take the program nationwide — the national health reforms he is now promising to enact in 2013 would deeply, perhaps fatally, undermine his greatest achievement in public life."
"Like the Affordable Care Act, Romney’s Massachusetts law relies on adequate federal funding to provide subsidies, and an individual mandate — to pull younger, healthier people into the insurance risk pool and hold premiums down. Romney’s promised reforms as President — specifically his support for deep cuts to Medicaid and his call to allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines — threaten that foundation."
"Like the Affordable Care Act, Romney’s Massachusetts law relies on adequate federal funding to provide subsidies, and an individual mandate — to pull younger, healthier people into the insurance risk pool and hold premiums down. Romney’s promised reforms as President — specifically his support for deep cuts to Medicaid and his call to allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines — threaten that foundation."
“If Romney block grants Medicaid, the question with our Commonwealth Care system is just the money question. Would he give us the money we need to make that work?” says Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health care expert who helped design the Massachusetts law.”[For] the rest of our market, it essentially would unravel what the mandate would do. We’d be back to where we were before the mandate.”
"Unlike the ACA, the Massachusetts law has two separate markets — one for people living under 300 percent of the poverty level and thus qualify for insurance subsidies; one for people above that threshold."
"The subsidized pool is called Commonwealth Care. For that market to work, Massachusetts relies on the federal government, via Medicaid, to cover half the cost of the generous subsidies it provides to lower income individuals. If Romney were to block grant Medicaid and cut its spending as dramatically as he’s signaled he would, Massachusetts would slowly lose those dollars."
“[I[n the long run we would lose the federal money that makes this program possible,” Gruber said. “Remember that the feds pay for half of our program. It isn’t clear if the state would be willing to pay 100% of the costs if the feds pull this funding.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/why-a-romney-presidency-would-be-a-grave-threat-to-romneycare.php?ref=fpa
If Romney weren't such a shameless panderer, you'd almost feel sorry for him in having to run against his own legacy of which he clearly is quite proud-and rightfully so. It's surely a great irony.
No comments:
Post a Comment