Worth Reading #7: Marc Ambinder on RomneyCare in Massachusetts (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? for March 26, 2010)
Marc Ambinder, September 2009: "[Romneycare] is succeeding on its own terms":
RomneyCare: It's Working (Mostly), And It's Popular (Largely): The nation's most ambitious experiment in universal health insurance is succeeding on its own terms, and has become fairly popular.... 96% of working age adults have health insurance in the state today, which is significantly higher than the national average.... An Urban Institute study finds that 72% of state residents are happy with the effort. The Massachusetts plan included an individual mandate, required employers to either provide coverage or pay into an insurance pool, expanded Medicaid and created a new government health care program for the lower middle class, and created a health connector agency that matches individuals with the private plan of their choice. About half of those who enrolled in the new programs are now covered by government-run plans....
Romney didn't favor the mandate.... But he supported the package in the end. It is something that our all-or-nothing political system doesn't tolerate: a government plan administered by private companies; a mixture of regulation and market incentives. A hybrid. (Remember -- Sen. Edward Kennedy was a major Romney ally.)... Critics worried about the program's costs -- it included income subsidies --- and who would bear the brunt of the transferred costs....
The recession has hurt the program's fiscal sustainability; more uninsured residents means that more money is needed to finance the system, and the legislature has struggled to find ways to preserve the same level of service for an expanded pool of people needing insurance. So -- costs remain an issue. But advocates of the plan say that, relative to the past, the state is getting much more bang for its bucks. Cost containment in the future may rest on the fate of the second phase of reform efforts -- large changes to the delivery part of the system.
Marc Ambinder, March 2010: "Whether RomneyCare worked is an open question":
Has Romney Lost The RomneyCare = ObamaCare Argument?: Last night, Patrick Ruffini, a conservative digital superstar with a top-notch mind to boot, tweeted to his 10,000+ followers: "Those given to hyperbole on both sides of this should remember one fact: This is Romneycare, writ large. Nothing more or less." Ruffini helped to set up Gov. Tim Pawlenty's political action committee website, and while I know Ruffini's opinions are his own, I also happen to know that the Pawlenty brain trust shares the view. And so, I must concede, do most of the conservative cognoscenti....
Whether RomneyCare worked is an open question: costs have risen (though the deep recession can be blamed here), forcing the state to beg the federal government for money, but it has achieved its coverage goal, and most people who are part of the insurance exchange are happy with it. One reason why the plan is fiscally tenuous now is because Romney and state Democrats left the heavy lifting -- the bending of the cost curve -- to their successors...
