The fact that Romney is not running on the success of his own platform really says a lot about the Republicans of 2012.

NPR's just being fair and balanced.

DarnoKonrad: NPR's just being fair and balanced.

Fair enough--but remember anything a President or other politician has done, from either party. If it worked, they deserve that praise. Romney's plan worked fairly well. He deserves praise, not punishment.

Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

TimonC346: DarnoKonrad: NPR's just being fair and balanced.

Fair enough--but remember anything a President or other politician has done, from either party. If it worked, they deserve that praise. Romney's plan worked fairly well. He deserves praise, not punishment.

Yeah, I wonder why he's not claiming credit for it on the campaign trails.

c) that one time Mitt Romney gave a shiat about the poor?

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

Little early to be doing meth and grain alcohol, isn't it?

The article actually nails it. The law has been a success here, and the "work in progress" part refers to controlling costs, which is getting better but still needs improvement.

Santorum is an idiot for calling it an "abject failure" - Romney should get major credit for his work on it. It's a sad state of affairs that he has to run far away from what should have been his signature policy achievement.

By the way - it's not "insuring the poor". To some extent the poor already were insured via Medicaid. It's "insuring everyone", which is a VERY key difference. The middle/working class who didn't have employer-provided insurance are the ones who benefit the most from this.

ghare: The fact that Romney is not running on the success of his own platform really says a lot about the Republicans of 2012.

He'll be sure to gloat about it after the primaries are over and he has to be moderate again. As well he should, even if he didn't do it by himself. I don't care for Romney but credit where credit's due -- he may be crazy and out of touch, but he's a competent statesman (and you really need to be to get anything done as a Republican in Massachusetts).

The thing I don't get about "moderate" Republicans is, if you have to pretend to be more radical than you are to win the primary, then what the hell does that tell you about the party you're running in?

olddinosaur: No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Fark those doctors and their fancy-pants book learnin', and those global-warming-fraud scientists and their "empirical evidence" (I put it in quotes because it's not real, like Jesus is!). I know what I know, and nobody knows it better.

// the "bring out the nerds" line during the SOPA hearings made me nauseous

The richest nation on earth, (if you count trillions in debt notes as "riches") has an election coming up where one of the biggest issues is how to keep it's citizens from falling over dead from treatable illnesses without inconveniencing a bunch of billionaires. There's some motherf*cking abject failure for your ass, y'all

The GOP is just sad that when Romney becomes the nominee the health care bill issue that they wanted to use to scare their base (death panels) will be taken off the table, because all Obama will have to do is say, "Well, my healthcare bill is pretty much the same as Romney's."

Just visit Google with some well chosen key words to see how bad the program was for Taxachusetts.

Instead of tackling the real problems of supply & demand, the Romneycare plan has just exacerbated the problems that already existed.

The Insurance industry isn't 100% to blame. Neither are health care providers or the government or the uninsured.

But together, they create a nice circle-jerk of finger pointing that gets nobody anywhere.

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

Yeah, and when those not as good at you at making decisions show up at the hospital with health problems who pays for that? Just let them suffer?

dragonchild: He'll be sure to gloat about it after the primaries are over and he has to be moderate again.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the Republicans then dropped all their legal challenges to the law and claimed that it was their idea all along. They're that shameless.

Also:

But significantly, no one's talking about repealing the 2006 law. Not even businessmen like Fred Difinis, who runs a small business selling parts for playground equipment. He's unhappy with the Massachusetts health plan because it requires him to buy coverage for prescription drugs, which he says he doesn't need.

WELL YOU DON'T NEED IT NOW, THAT'S WHY IT'S INSURANCE. @#(^%(*&@#%*(@%&*(%!!!!!

olddinosaur: No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Fine, pat yourself on the back. OK, so what do we do about the mentally disabled? The mentally ill?

I understand you're awesome and all that, but not everyone can be like you, and it's not always a case of "bad choices". Sure, there are people who milk the system but gutting the system because of them is like burning your house down to get rid of a few termites.

Well it saved my step-dad's life so I think it's pretty cool.

Uninsured for years so he wouldn't go to doctors - Mass health kicked in & he went & found out he had cancer. Doc said he probably had 2 months to live if he didn't go in.

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.


Can I buy some medical marijuana from you?

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

I have been a Farker for nearly a decade and it's possible this is the most retarded thing ever typed, ever. Not just on Fark but in history.

/BTW, there's only one "N" and apostrophe in "can't"

Edsel: I wouldn't even be surprised if the Republicans then dropped all their legal challenges to the law and claimed that it was their idea all along. They're that shameless.

They are and they've done so before, but now the teabaggers will keep them in line. The establishment Republicans are turning on their grassroots because the base is so nucking futs they can't win national elections.

/ The establishment Democrats turned on their own grassroots decades ago

RomneyCare also 'attacks religious liberty' by covering contraceptives.

Edsel: The article actually nails it. The law has been a success here, and the "work in progress" part refers to controlling costs, which is getting better but still needs improvement.


This. Romney is taking a lot of flak for what actually seems to be a pretty good system; the only problem with which is the initial assumption that giving people insurance will actually reduce costs. Which, as anybody who's managed to scrape by in a microeconomics class with a passing grade will tell you, isn't the way insurance typically works. But the kicker is: once you've got a centralized system in place you gain a measure of control over the system and it's costs; the health care system spends billions of dollars every year chasing down old medical records and even more money trying to figure out how to bill your insurance company; that's where the fat of the healthcare industry is and that's the easiest way to lower health care costs.

Since we're all playing for monopoly money, is it actually such a bad idea for doctors and health services and equipment and medications to be payed for out of the community chest deck? And do the people dispensing it actually need a new 745i every time they pick up a stethoscope or a scalpel?

As soon as the primary focus of anything becomes money, the thing that it is purported to be about becomes the thing it used to be about.

Maybe if people focused upon their medical training and practice, we wouldn't need a metric f*ckton of shysters to cover their ass when they oops.

Also, shouldn't basic physiology, medicine, first aid, dietetics, CPR, triage, EMT procedures, basic diagnosis and affordable basic medical equipment have "trickled down" to primary education classes by now? Do we really need some fat prick handing out 13.00 aspirins to a man in a 1,000.00 a day bed with the sniffles?

TimonC346
Fair enough--but remember anything a President or other politician has done, from either party. If it worked, they deserve that praise. Romney's plan worked fairly well. He deserves praise, not punishment.

But the plan passed wasn't Romney's. The State Senate and House of Reps wrote most of it, and since it was politically sound, Romney signed off on it. He's no bill-writing wunderkind. The legislature crafts the bills and sends them to the Governor, even if the Governor initiate the proposal.

It's truly Massachusetts bill, not Romney's. It's convenient ammo against the mandate-naysayers.

And I can say firmly, coming from Los Angeles and having moved to Boston this past summer, as far as health care goes, MA has a much more coherent system than CA.

TeddyBallGame: olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

I have been a Farker for nearly a decade and it's possible this is the most retarded thing ever typed, ever. Not just on Fark but in history.

/BTW, there's only one "N" and apostrophe in "can't"

No person tells them how to spell.

And as long as we're stepping back from the trees, has it occurred to anybody else that money has become counterproductive? All ideas come in and out of fashion but this one is starting to stink up the joint.

Derek Force: Why do I have to work my ass off so some freeloading welfare case can get free insurance?

...Y'know, when the rich (and I'm not talking 1%...I'm talking the .001% that own 40% of the country and make 60% of the money) get together to gripe about the proles, they say the exact same thing. Except they replace "freeloading welfare case" with "lazy middle class slob like Derek Force".

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

You decided to type that up, so you're not exactly batting 1.000 on life choices.

olddinosaur: No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

The problem with this is that a lot of people don't think they need healthcare until they do need it and then it's too late.

Fine who cares let the idiots suffer right? I mean they deserve it don't they?

Some of those idiots have children who will have 'pre-existing' conditions for the rest of their lives because their idiot parents didn't get them covered. Those idiots will not just roll over and die quietly when they need medical care. Some of them will steal, some will fail to pay and drive your costs up, some will depend on charity or government spending that otherwise could have been spent on someone truly deserving.

So it's like this you can either make universal healthcare something that citizens of your state (or country) are entitled to freely and fairly or you can choose to subsidize the healthcare of the people who make a choice not to pay for it because make no mistake they will get healthcare and someone will end up paying for it.

Yeah, and when those not as good at you at making decisions show up at the hospital with health problems who pays for that?

This seems to be the 700 stone Gorilla in the room. The biggest wastes in Aurora hospitals in the greater Milwaukee area come from the emergency rooms in inner city hospitals. People show up with things comparable to sniffles and a sneeze and expect to be treated as it's an emergency.

As a human rights issue, the Supreme Court has ruled that you cannot be turned away at the door for health care at an emergency room. You show up with any complaint, they have to treat you. Who is going to foot the bill for that visit is the interesting question.

If I have the sniffles, I buy a bottle of cold reliever and suck it up. $8. The helicopter parent with a kid that has the sniffles makes an appointment with their primary care physician who gives her prescription medication that does the exact same thing, $40 for the visit, $15 for the prescription. The person who hasn't learned the difference between life threatening emergency and common cold is going to the emergency room where they will be triaged, seen by an RN, and then diagnosed by a doctor and sent out with a prescription. Total cost: $345/hour, maybe more if they're hooked up to an IV or have bloodwork done. Not only is this eight times higher, but many times the hospital expects to never see a dime of that money. What are you going to do, send out a bill collector to squeeze money out of someone who has none?

Now consider if that person does have a life-threatening emergency. Appendicitis runs $10k-$15k. If I show up to the emergency room and have immediate surgery, my insurance company will automatically negotiate the price about 20% lower on my behalf. Someone who cannot afford health insurance will get stuck with the full bill.

I think there needs to be a tradeoff, honestly. If we can insure everyone then we need to implement laws that deny the person the right to use an emergency room like a place to hang out every time you don't feel well. But you're not going to see any reduction in wasteful spending or hospital subsidies (who receive money from the government for treating patients who couldn't otherwise afford it) until you start taking on the true problems, like people who can't educate themselves about what level of care they actually need.

Pants full of macaroni!!: Well, DUH. Romney's a Libbylib Leftist Libtard RINO, therefore it is an Abject Failure, just like everything Libs do.



Concur.

FTFA: The 2006 law didn't do anything about controlling health costs, which were already among the nation's highest.

and boom goes the dynamite. i have insurance through work, and we've seen increases of at least 10% per year, with diminishing benefits (hello, ER deductible)

TimonC346: Fair enough--but remember anything a President or other politician has done, from either party. If it worked, they deserve that praise. Romney's plan worked fairly well. He deserves praise, not punishment.

I would agree with that statement. However, Mitt himself wouldn't.

Unhip1: It's truly Massachusetts bill, not Romney's.

And he signed it like a competent statesman instead of vetoing it to score political points on principle. It's called governing.

He's not even bragging that he wrote it; his rivals are attacking him for signing it. Goes to show how nucking futs the GOP is.

As one who works for Mass state healthcare I can say with authority that our susbsidized plans:

(1) Work well for those of very little means.
(2) Not so much for those are in that middle-income area, but most of them are on company plans now, even if those plans didn't exist before all this.
(3) are not accepted at some top-flight hospitals. There is no mandate on providers, just consumers.
(4) Have definitely made our state more of an immigration magnet than before, but the economy itself is doing that as well (unemployment is somewhat less here than elsewhere and we already have a thriving immigrant base.)
(5) Once you have the insurance, the hardest thing is finding a primary care physician. Most of them are booked solid. But it's not impossible.

The article told me a few things I didn't know, but what it doesn't answer is how much Fed money is going into making this thing work. Taking this model nationwide is going to be very very expensive.

Finally, cost-control is the key. During the Obamacare debate I was in favor of Kucinich's single-player plan. There are other models that would work, though. The key point is not to have the individual mandate end up simply being a giveaway to big insurers and care networks doing business as usual.

olddinosaur: Abject failure.

No person knows my life better than I do, no person knows what is best for me better than I do, and no person other than myself is qualified to make the decisions which are relevant to my life except me.

Anyone who says different is a fool, and this can be proven: If I am qualified to run my life properly, no action on his part is necessary----and if I am not, no action on his part is possible.

If he cannt figure that out for himself, he proves he is stupid.

You wouldn't happen to be one of those guys who lives in Tennessee and is willing to let your house burn to the ground because that $75 annual fee is far too exorbitant?

If your society doles out something as fundamental as health care in mismanaged and preventative only dribs and drabs to it's citizenry, lest they are well heeled and can trade the price of a 5 B/R, 3 bath colonial for an operation, your society if a f*cking failure and your mendicants are failed stockbrokers with machines that go "ping".

Ghryswald: Just visit Google with some well chosen key words to see how bad the program was for Taxachusetts.




And those "well chosen" key words would be?
Also no links to any relevant sites that came back from this alleged google search.

Burden of proof, how does it work?

manimal2878: Yeah, and when those not as good at you at making decisions show up at the hospital with health problems who pays for that? Just let them suffer?

The arrogance is scarcely to be believed. YOU, Mr. 2878, you get to decide for people you say aren't good at making decisions?! So, you want to make decisions for those others and scoff at people who want to decide about their own lives.

As for "just let them suffer", it's the same dance all over. You didn't give to charity to help cover them. You didn't give because someone else might not give -- yes, EVERYONE must give to the cause that YOU think is most just.

Politics stinks; it's full of hate. It has to be hateful because some insist on making choices for others.

I live in the Southeast now and have the worst health insurance I have ever had. I've had some medical issues that have cost me a small fortune in out-of-pocket costs and sekrit deductibles that don't count toward the out-of-pocket max. I'm not talking about major procedures, just a couple of doctor visits, some generic prescriptions, and one urgent care visit.

What really surprises me, though, is that many of my colleagues think that it's the best health insurance on the planet. Apparently many people in the region who do have health insurance only have Major Medical and expect to spend a significant portion of their salaries on regular medical care. It's pathetic.

piperTom: Politics stinks; it's full of hate. It has to be hateful because some insist on making choices for others.

This may be the most succinct assessment of the monkey and pony show that is politics I have ever read.

piperTom: Politics stinks; it's full of hate. It has to be hateful because some insist on making choices for others.

Oh come off it. Health care isn't not the first time to government got in your business and it won't be the last. The people who don't want health care always try to frame it as some sort of noble fight against the oppressors They had no issues with warrentless wiretapping or the patriot act but they'll be damned if their tax dollars have to help some damned messican or black person.

Health care is a good way to see how ignorant people actually are. Some of the haters don't seem to realize that the best healthcare in the world is socialized and it's also significantly cheaper than what we pay. They can't wrap their head around the fact that they already pay for all the deadbeats and poor and reforming our system would be significantly cheaper for everyone.