Marsha Mercer: Romney's conundrum on health care

Column

When Massachu­­setts Gov. Mitt Romney signed his state’s health care plan in 2006, requiring every­one to buy insurance, he bragged that the free ride was over.

“The Republican ap­proach is to say, ‘You know what? Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride,’” Romney told Neil Cavuto on Fox News.

Romney cast his plan as the ultimate conservative idea, but this was before Barack Obama was elected president, before Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, before the anti­government folks rattled politicians’ tea cups. In 2012, Romney’s leadership in promoting personal re­sponsibility has made him the GOP’s piñata.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it also can be political death-making. Romney’s presidential campaign has suffered because President Obama’s health-care law also shuts down the free ride on health care. Obama requires most people to buy insurance by 2014 or pay a tax penalty.

Romney still tries to sell the mandate to buy insur­ance as a conservative idea, but Rick Santorum has surged by whacking continuously at the Massa­chusetts law and by linking Romney with Obama.

Damning it as the “stepchild of Obamacare,” Santorum says that requir­ing people to buy health insurance is nothing short of an assault on personal liberty — and there’s “no greater issue in this race than freedom.” Whoa, the freedom to freeload?

There’s a difference between campaigning and governing. While Congress and the Republican can­didates bash “Obamacare” for political gain, the ranks of the uninsured continue to grow. About 50 million Americans now lack insur­ance. Some have lost jobs and benefits in the reces­sion while others are work­ing for employers who have dropped health benefits.

And so, as Romney said back in 2006, we already have socialized medicine.

People who lack insurance still get sick and in car ac­cidents and wind up in the emergency room where they get care. Taxpayers and the people with insur­ance foot the bills. Romney’s and Obama’s health laws are attempts to bring people into the system to rein in costs and improve access to care.

Interestingly, none of the legal challenges to the fed­eral law dispute the basic fact that the U.S. faces a crisis in health care cost and access.

Today Massachusetts has the highest level of health insurance coverage in the country, and, here’s a surprise, “Romneycare” enjoys widespread sup­port. Almost two-thirds of state residents like the Massachusetts plan, ac­cording to a new survey for WBUR, a public radio sta­tion in Boston. The finding is consistent with previous surveys over the years.

Until 2009, Gallup polls showed large majorities of Americans believed government had a re­sponsibility to make sure Americans had health care coverage. About half of us still believe it.

And, while most Ameri­cans hate the idea of socialized medicine, one in four Americans now get their health care through government programs — Medicare, Medicaid, military and veterans’ benefits. They just don’t think of themselves as re­ceiving government health care. Who can forget the protesting seniors waving signs that read “Keep Your Hands Off MY Medicare.”

One in two Americans favor repeal of the Afford­able Care Act, polls tell us.

At the same time, young people, now eligible to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26, are getting coverage as never before. The Census Bureau estimated that at least half a million people 18 to 24 have gotten coverage under the law.

All the Republican presi­dential candidates favor speedy repeal of Obama’s plan, if the Supreme Court doesn’t do it first. The court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the law in June.

Santorum insists that Romney is the “worst pos­sible person” to confront Obama on the health care issue in the fall, because he “built the largest govern­ment- run health-care sys­tem in the United States.”

Romney, who could argue he has the experience to work with Democrats as he did in Massachusetts, instead says that what was good for Massachusetts isn’t good for the whole country.

Promising “no free rides” may have been a conserva­tive concept, but in 2012 it’s too liberal for a Republican seeking his party’s presiden­tial nomination.

Contact Mercer at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com. © 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.