Obamanycare Confirmed

One of the best lines used against Romney was “Obamanycare,” It captures the essence of what is wrong with Mitt. He is a liberal at heart, believes in Paternalism and is an empty suit.

Now we have confirmation that Romneycare was instrumental in the formulation for Obamacare.

Taken together, Massachusetts’s experience under the 2006 reform initiative, which became the template for the structure of the Affordable Care Act, highlights the potential gains and the challenges the nation now faces under federal health reform.

The rest of the study is interesting though. They basically confirm that people are using more health care, which is expected. When it comes to affordability they say this:

 Consistent with that expectation, there have been gains in the affordability of care for adults since 2006, as evident in a lower burden from out-of-pocket health care spending (excluding premiums) and less unmet need for care because of cost (Exhibit 4; additional measures in Appendix Exhibit 4; simple [unadjusted] estimates in Appendix Exhibit 8).⁹

Why are they excluding premiums? Maybe because premiums have risen more rapidly in Masachusetts than anywhere else in the country?

 As highlighted in Figure 1, in the absence of policy change, health care spending in Massachusetts is projected to nearly double to $123 billion in 2020, increasing 8 percent faster than the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Take out most expensive portion and of course it’s “affordable.” Hell if you don’t count all the beer I drink, I never drink alcohol either! Only Academics and Politicians think that is good policy (see how they measure CPI).

January 19, 2012 
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers was unchanged in December, as it was in November. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.1 percent in December after increasing 0.2 percent in November.

All in all, Romneycare is a disaster. The economics are wrong. I’m not even going to get into the Mandate, which was also used for Obamacare. Obamanycare is a great word to use to describe MassCare. It needs to be hung around Romney’s neck. Thankfully Newt is doing just that.

 

h/t: James Pethokoukis <—Read his story. It’s much better written than mine.

A Must Read: Steyn on Obamacare

This article, by Mark Steyn, is a must read. Very Hayekian in the Road to Serfdom sense.

Obamacare worth the price to Democrats

Why is he doing this? Why let “health” “care” “reform” stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it’s worth it. Big time. I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (Let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative”).

The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

I’ve been thinking as much lately as well. I have to admit I was more thinking of the short term consequences for Obama. If Obamacare passes, he gets re-elected, because in two years all the Democrats that are against Obamacare will realize how it puts Health Insurance Companies in a Death Spiral. The Democrats will again confuse Government Failure with Market Failure. They will say that, even with the “generous” and “benevolent” actions taken by Government, the Health Insurance Market can’t cope with the problem, the only solution is More Government, and there you have it…Single Payer.

The Short Run, I was thinking about, leads to the Long Run, Steyn talks about.