Thursday, January 31, 2008

How's RomneyCare Working Out?

Anyone that is enamored of or that is concerned about universal health care (such as Gov. Huntsman’s RomneyCare-like proposal) ought to read this article about why the liberal California Senate killed Gov. Schwarzenegger’s universal health care plan. GovernatorCare was essentially killed by labor unions that were concerned about the provision to force everyone to buy health insurance.

The article discusses how RomneyCare has driven up the cost of health insurance in Massachusetts at double the rate it was rising previously. Of course, the government is responding with price controls, which means cuts in coverage, which means that citizens end up paying a lot for very little coverage. If they want something better, it has to come out of their own pockets. Those that can afford to will do so. Those that can’t? Well, they’re about to get a dose of the bottom half of the UK’s two-tier system.

Things are getting bad so quickly that it literally would be better for many citizens to pay the penalty imposed on those that refuse to buy health care and then self insure.

So how do we go about driving down costs in our medical care industry? The article suggests “deregulating insurance markets, giving patients more control over their health care dollars, and fixing the federal tax code to let individuals, like employers, buy health coverage with pre-tax dollars….”

Before we go jumping on the RomneyCare bandwagon, let’s take a good hard look at how it is working out for the citizens of Massachusetts. In fact, let’s let it run its course for five years or so as a test case. Then let’s learn lessons from it. More government control over your health care — even if they call it market-based — is not the answer.

1 comment:

Tiffany said...

I will give Romney this. He doesn't propose that his plan should be applied nation wide or even, necessarily anywhere else. He is a federalist and doesn't believe in a one size fits all solution.