Pawlenty takes implicit jab at Romney on health care
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 19, 2024, 02:13:33 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Election Archive
  Election Archive
  2012 Elections
  Pawlenty takes implicit jab at Romney on health care
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: Pawlenty takes implicit jab at Romney on health care  (Read 539 times)
Mr. Morden
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 44,073
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: July 28, 2009, 08:19:55 PM »

link:

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pawlenty-weighs-in-on-healthcare-slaps-romney-2009-07-28.html

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.
Logged
paul718
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,012


Political Matrix
E: 4.00, S: -4.35

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2009, 08:57:13 PM »

While I foresee myself preferring Romney over Pawlenty, I can appreciate Pawlenty actually making a substantive comment here.  Healthy debate (no pun intended) among Republicans is good for the GOP.
Logged
The Duke
JohnD.Ford
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 9,270


Political Matrix
E: 0.13, S: -1.23

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2009, 12:20:41 AM »

If Pawlenty believes what he just said, he is intellectually disqualified from the job.  If he's simply saying it for political purposes, he is morally unqualified for the job.

He is overstating the current cost of RomneyCare (He says $1.3 billion, reality is about $700 million) and most of that extra cost is due to changes made by a Democratic Governor and Democratic legislature that were passed after Romney had left office.
Logged
paul718
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,012


Political Matrix
E: 4.00, S: -4.35

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2009, 01:21:37 PM »

Romney has written a new opinion in USA Today regarding health care.

[quote]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/07/mr-president-whats-the-rush.html

Mr. President, what's the rush?
Obama could learn a thing or two about health care reform from Massachusetts. One, time is not the enemy. Two, neither are the Republicans.

By Mitt Romney


Because of President Obama's frantic approach, health care has run off the rails. For the sake of 47 million uninsured Americans, we need to get it back on track.

Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

No other state has made as much progress in covering their uninsured as Massachusetts. The bill that made it happen wasn't a rush job. Shortly after becoming governor, I worked in a bipartisan fashion with Democrats to insure all our citizens. It took almost two years to find a solution. When we did, it passed the 200-member legislature with only two dissenting votes. It had the support of the business community, the hospital sector and insurers. For health care reform to succeed in Washington, the president must finally do what he promised during the campaign: Work with Republicans as well as Democrats.

Massachusetts also proved that you don't need government insurance. Our citizens purchase private, free-market medical insurance. There is no "public option." With more than 1,300 health insurance companies, a federal government insurance company isn't necessary. It would inevitably lead to massive taxpayer subsidies, to lobbyist-inspired coverage mandates and to the liberals' dream: a European-style single-payer system. To find common ground with skeptical Republicans and conservative Democrats, the president will have to jettison left-wing ideology for practicality and dump the public option.

The cost issue

Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar. Second, we helped pay for our new program by ending an old one — something government should do more often. The federal government sends an estimated $42 billion to hospitals that care for the poor: Use those funds instead to help the poor buy private insurance, as we did.

When our bill passed three years ago, the legislature projected that our program would cost $725 million in 2009. At $723 million, next year's forecast is pretty much on target. When you calculate all the savings, including that from the free hospital care we eliminated, the net cost to the state is approximately $350 million. The watchdog Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation concluded that our program's cost is "relatively modest" and "well within initial projections."

And if subsidies and coverages are reined in, as I've suggested, the Massachusetts program could actually break even. One thing is certain: The president must insist on a program that doesn't add to our spending burden. We simply cannot afford another trillion-dollar mistake.

The Massachusetts reform aimed at getting virtually all our citizens insured. In that, it worked: 98% of our citizens are insured, 440,000 previously uninsured are covered and almost half of those purchased insurance on their own, with no subsidy. But overall, health care inflation has continued its relentless rise. Here is where the federal government can do something we could not: Take steps to stop or slow medical inflation.

At the core of our health cost problem is an incentive problem. Patients don't care what treatments cost once they pass the deductible. And providers are paid more when they do more; they are paid for quantity, not quality. We will tame runaway costs only when we change incentives. We might do what some countries have done: Require patients to pay a portion of their bill, except for certain conditions. And providers could be paid an annual fixed fee for the primary care of an individual and a separate fixed fee for the treatment of a specific condition. These approaches have far more promise than the usual bromides of electronic medical records, transparency and pay-for-performance, helpful though they will be.

Try a business-like analysis

I spent most of my career in the private sector. When well-managed businesses considered a major change of some kind, they engaged in extensive analysis, brought in outside experts, exhaustively evaluated every alternative, built consensus among those who would be affected and then moved ahead. Health care is many times bigger than all the companies in the Dow Jones combined. And the president is rushing changes that dwarf what any business I know has faced.

Republicans are not the party of "no" when it comes to health care reform. This Republican is proud to be the first governor to insure all his state's citizens. Other Republicans such as Rep. Paul Ryan and Sens. Bob Bennett and John McCain, among others, have proposed their own plans. Republicans will join with the Democrats if the president abandons his government insurance plan, if he endeavors to craft a plan that does not burden the nation with greater debt, if he broadens his scope to reduce health costs for all Americans, and if he is willing to devote the rigorous effort, requisite time and bipartisan process that health care reform deserves.


Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

The Massachusetts plan

• Everyone must buy health insurance or face tax penalties.

• Hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on free hospital care were converted into subsidies to help the needy buy insurance.

• A health insurance "exchange" was established to help connect the uninsured with private health plans at more affordable rates.

• Health plans can offer consumers higher deductibles and more restrictive physician and hospital networks in order to lower costs.

• Businesses with 11 or more workers that do not offer insurance must pay a $295 per employee fee.

Source: Massachusetts Health Connector Authority
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.209 seconds with 13 queries.