It is quite common for pundits and pols to compare the federal 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) with the so-called healthcare reform legislation passed in Massachusetts in 2006, popularly known as Romneycare (mabye not so popular anymore to Mr. Romney).
I'm starting to think -- based on research I'm doing on the history of insurance reform in Massachusetts -- that the better comparison would be with Dukakacare, the so-called reform initiated by former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor, Michael Dukakis, in 1988. Dukakacare was an initial attempt at universal health care for all in Massachusetts. Although it was passed in 1988, it was never really implemented and was repealed by the Democrat-party-controlled Massachusetts legislature in the mid 1990s. It failed and was repealed for all the reasons that people are finding to be the case with Romneycare and the PPACA: high costs, killed jobs, out of control bureaucracy, etc. etc.
Following this comparison to its illogical conclusion, we will see the demise of Romneycare in a few years and the PPACA will bite the dust in 2018, just about when it was supposed to be fully rolled out. That lines up -- not coincidentally -- with the year the PPACA imposes high fines on Democrat-party-supporter health plans known as "Cadillac plans."
-- Dennis Byron