As noted in my last post, Romneycare is NOT socialized medicine. But Romneycare IS a failure looking at it both simplistically and in detail. This is an issue because Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick goes to Congress on Tuesday March 1 to spread the lies he's been telling about so-called healthcare reform in Massachusetts nationwide. (I know. I know. It is ironic that all these Democrats are praising old Mitt while his fellow Republicans shat all over him. It serves him right for leaving us this mess.) Simplistically, even if you believe revisionists like Romney and Patrick who now claim Romneycare was only about universal coverage (that's the lie Patrick leads with usually--watch for it Tuesday) -- Romneycare failed to achieve universality. Depending on which statistical methodology and whose statistics you use, it did not move the needle. More instructive, looking at the absolute numbers (that is, not depending on statistical projections but counting real people like in a census), those of us paying for our insurance ourselves are still carrying the others--despite what Romney and Patrick say. He just moved the budget cost from something called the Free Care Pool to Connector Authority subsidies. The number of people that actually buy insurance has gone down by tens of thousands. (This is all documented by the Massachusetts Department of Healthcare Finance and Policy Key Indicators reports.) And Romneycare definitely did not deliver on the dozen other things that Romney and the Democrats promised at the time and now deny. It did not increase access. Every study done about Massachusetts has indicated that access is no different or worse (again, they all depend on statistical models and the liklihood that real people will tell someone from India over the phone what they discussed with their doctor). And Romneycare did not deliver on the dozens of things Patrick has claimed since he became Governor. He lied about Romneycare reducing the amenable death rate. He lied about how he backed down the insurers vis a vis individual insurance rates. He helped Massachusetts BC/BS lie about how its ACO pilot was increasing quality of care (it may be but the statistics don't show it). And on and on. Romneycare as conceived by Romney is a failure. Romneycare as propagandized by Deval Patrick is a big lie. -- Dennis Byron
