Ruh roh. RomneyCare cut the rise in insurance premiums in Massachusetts AND insured (nearly) everybody. This is good news for John McCain Mitt Romney Rick Santorum Barack Obama!
Massachusetts's health-insurance premium growth declined relative to the nation as a whole in the years since Romneycare has been enacted. From 2006 to 2010, employer-sponsored health-care premiums for a family rose about 19% in Massachusetts, while they rose about 22% in the US as a whole.
That's not even the worst of it.
Monday, December 13, 2010 - The Patrick-Murray Administration today announced that over 98 percent of Massachusetts residents have health insurance, demonstrating the ongoing success of health care reform in the Commonwealth. According to the state's annual household survey on health insurance, released by the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, only 1.9 percent of state residents remain uninsured and nearly every major demographic group is within a few percentage points of universal coverage.
With some fifty million people uninsured in the United States as a whole, a whopping 16% of the population, achieving less than a 2% uninsured rate is something to run away from... if you want the Republican nomination.
And this is pure evil, from the same source.
99.8 percent of ((Massachusetts)) children have coverage.
What's a Mittens to do (Besides talk about how many Cadillacs he owns and how many NASCAR team owners he pals around with) ?
To lie, or not to lie.
That is not the question (I do it all the time).
Whether 'tis ignobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of crazed Tea Party zealots
or to bear arms against the Sea of Sanity
and by opposing lose 35 states.
To go Galt. Perchance to have my head explode from the contradictions.
Aye, there's the rub.
This isn't to say that RomneyCare/ObamaCare/PPACA is a wonderful system. It isn't and it won't be. But if you've managed to keep the cost of insurance below the national average while greatly extending coverage, you should be able to stand up and crow.
It's only fitting that Romney is eating it, instead.
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Note: I couldn't find coverage figures for 2011 for Massachusetts. I assume they are similar.
A few more stats from the cited study:
By the the 2008-2010 period, the individual premium in Massachusetts grew about 5% slower than it did for the US...
...the average family premium actually declined in Massachusetts from 2009 to 2010...
...many health-insurance groups posted considerable surpluses in Massachusetts in 2010
Between 2006 and 2010, the family premium for small group employers in Massachusetts increased faster than it did for the nation as a whole
That last is of course a disappointment. Perhaps candidate Romney can make it the centerpiece of his war against Governor Romney.