BOTTOMLINE
Falsely created "myths" abound and people haven't looked deeper
See
The concern that conservatives have about the "RomneyCare" is the major source of doubt. But it is absolutely not true that his part was at all anything but conservative and soundly based.
Conservatives widely praised it (see below) and more than half the states wanted to emulate it.
Then ObamaCare came along and the concern was with the mandates and the extreme intrusion - and opponents had a field day, accusing Romney of having something similar - but RomneyCare was very, very different. And Romney put in only one requirement: that free riders pay their share for the costs they incurred. [Free riders are those who can afford health insurance but choose to free load off of the free care forced by the Federal law to not turn away anyone seeking health care - that mandate was passed under Reagan.] And people bought into a generalization, but failed to realize that they are hugely different. And the opponents took inappropriate, untruthful advantage of it.
It had to be done to solve an impending problem with the Federal government involving $395 million and to thwart the more liberal version that might have happened if Romney did not get the experts together together to innovate.
It is time to squash this total falsehood - and for conservatives to embrace this person who has a magnificent record of achieving conservative goals, from balancing a huge budget deficit to vetoing things that were pro-abortion. (Courts forced in an abortion provision, the 85% Democratic legislature overrode Romney's veto of any fees for employers, he insisted on free markets and no new taxes - he is innocent of the charges! ) And he is the only one who will not need on the job training to get the conservative goals accomplished.
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There are persistent concerns (fears, hesitations) among conservatives about Romney. They are based on false beliefs, false 'guilt by association', and unrealistic fears. See
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One of the great ironies here is that RomneyCare is the greatest example of implementing conservative principles to solve what conservatives have sought for years. (Yet people evilize it for the very principle the conservatives advocated as the conservative alternative to HillaryCare. And conservatives should, likewise, advocate RomneyCare-like alternatives, for the individual states, in lieu of ObamaCare!!!! (See conservative praise, below.)
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Calling RomneyCare similar to ObamaCare is like accusing an efficient manufacturing operation of being a human-killing bomb factory because they both used machines.
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A KILLER MISUNDERSTANDING! CORRECTION: ROMNEY CARE IS NOT SIMILAR TO OBAMACARE - AND IT IS NOT LIBERAL!
This might be the first trigger for this suspicion, subsequently causing conservatives to look for other things to be doubtful about.
RomneyCare was forced to be done to offset legislation from the 85% Democratic legislature and to meet federal government requirements to pay to individuals and not institutions (involved $395 million!).
He insisted
It be free market based
No fees for employers not covering for health insurance. Romney vetoed, but 85% Democratic legislature overrode it. He is not the creator of it and any blame is not at all justified!
No new taxes
Only cost sharing for free riders
The so-called "individual mandate" was actually a fee for free riders to share in the costs of health care they were taking advantage of. ("Free riders" are those who can afford health insurance but choose to not have it as they can simply access the Federal government required free health care. Romney sought only to have those responsible for their own costs - which is a conservative principle and is certainly fiscally conservative.
CONSERVATIVES PRAISED THE PLAN, BEFORE THEY HAD OBAMACARE TO OPPOSE
The plan is based on the individual mandate principle espoused by conservatives, from the Heritage Foundation, to Newt Gingrich to
Heritage Foundation proposed individual health care mandate.
Scott Brown, senator from Massachusetts, supported the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, which requires all residents to have health insurance, with a state-subsidized plan created for those who cannot afford to insure themselves. Brown does not support President Obama's health care reform plan (Wikipedia)
"The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," reads "Newt Notes" from Gingrich's former consulting company, the Center For Health Transformation. "We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans." (Also, I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond ... )
"While the Commonwealth's plan will naturally endure tremendous scrutiny from those who assert that the law will not work as intended, Massachusetts leaders are to be commended for this bipartisan proposal to tackle the enormous challenge of finding real solutions for creating a sustainable health system."
Other conservative scholars and Republican policymakers who have embraced the idea of shared responsibility include Mark Pauly, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania; Sen. John Chafee; a group of the health care law’s cosponsors—including Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)—who introduced similar legislation in 1993; and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Gingrich then offered a prescient observation: "I hope that Massachusetts' initiative to provide affordable, quality health insurance for all continues to ignite even more debate around the subject of how to best address our nation's uninsured crisis and the critical problems within the health system at large."
