Romney distances self from Mass. health plan

In "Romney distances self from Mass. health plan," the Boston Globe points out that even though "Romney introduced the idea in late 2004" and "after the Legislature made its own adjustments, Romney signed it into law last April," he's now trying to distance himself:

"It is very tempting as a legislator to say, 'You're right, we'll change the law so you don't have to pay anything,' " Romney said. "And once that happens, now you start attracting people from all over that want to come get free care, and then the price starts going up, and taxpayers are going to start feeling a burden, and employers will start leaving the state."

Now, it's true that the more subsidies MA provides to enable people to pay premiums, the more attractive it will be for people to move to the state, but that doesn't explain why even the unsubsidized premiums apparently will cost $380 a month for individuals. Romney is also now on record against requiring fees from employers who don't offer any insurance, so one wonders how he why he supported this plan to begin with (and apparently is still bragging about it) or how he plans to fund any proposal he makes on the national level.

This is one more reason for Democrats to be very cautious in enabling mediocre plans from "moderate" Republicans to go through on their watch. Better to support something that works and is efficient, rather than aiding GOP in their unsustainable "handouts to the insurance industry" style plans.

The new Governor, Deval Patrick, is apparently considering tinkering with the law. Just requiring insurance companies to offer cheaper plans is likely to reduce coverage dramatically or, given minimum requirements, destroy the incentive to offer any plans. Perhaps the requirement should be a cap on administrative costs. Better yet, Patrick could do more than tinker and use the allocated funds for an expansion of state provided insurance programs.