Here's a scary thought

[karl]

Mitt Romney leads almost all the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. But if Romney is the GOP candidate, what will the party do with Obamacare? When he was Governor of Massachusetts, Romney pushed for the passage of a state law that is the clear precursor of Obamacare.

Mr. Romney's promise that getting everyone covered in Massachusetts would force costs down has not panned out. A typical family of four today faces total annual health costs which are the highest in the country. Per capita spending for health care is 27% higher than the national average.

The state's stubbornly high health costs are partly the result of intrusive government regulations that stifle competition in the insurance market and strict mandates on what services insurance must cover. A 2008 study by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy found that the state's most expensive insurance mandates cost patients more than $1 billion between July 2004 and July 2005. The Massachusetts health reform law left all of them in place.

While Governor Romney insisted that everyone should pay something for coverage, that is not the way his plan has turned out. More than half of the 408,000 newly insured residents pay nothing, according to a February 2010 report by the Massachusetts Health Connector, the state's insurance exchange.

Another 140,000 remained uninsured in 2008 and were either assessed a penalty or exempted from the individual mandate because the state deemed they couldn't afford the premiums.

Further, insurance companies are required to sell "just-in-time" policies even if people wait until they are sick to buy coverage. That's just like the Obama plan. There is growing evidence that many people are gaming the system by purchasing health insurance when they need surgery or other expensive medical care, then dropping it a few months later.

Some Massachusetts safety-net hospitals that treat a disproportionate number of lower-income and uninsured patients are threatening bankruptcy. They still are treating a large number of people without health insurance, but the payments they receive for uncompensated care have been cut under the reform deal.

In his decision declaring Obamacare unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson noted that then-Senator Obama opposed a requirement for each person to purchase health insurance.

Romney was for Obamacare before Obama was, and he offers no apologies for what he has already foisted upon Massachusetts.