Why Romneycare is Obamacare

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on September 16, 2011 at 3:42 PM, updated September 19, 2011 at 11:05 AM

njjo-mitt-romney.jpgMitt Romney: He's got a lot in common with a certain president.

Here's a good piece from Reason Magazine explaining the similarities.

The writer makes the  point that both Romneycare and Obamacare rely on Medicare:

"Meanwhile, Romney’s repeated evasions on his own plan make it awfully hard to trust him when he claims, as he did in last night’s debate, that he’d “reform Medicare and reform get them on a sustainable basis” for those who are still a ways off from retirement. Trusting Romney becomes even more difficult when he simultaneously bashes President Obama for cutting Medicare in order to pay for ObamaCare. For one thing, Obama modeled his health care overhaul on Romney’s, but didn’t have the option of simply handing the bill off to a larger governmental entity. Romney took money from the feds; Obama took money from Medicare. For another, any reform of Medicare to make it 'sustainable' will necessarily require cutting it back from current projections."

As I noted, the proper question to ask the Democrats is: If Obamacare is so damn good and covers everyone, then why don't we just get rid of Medicare?

The same question should be put to Romney. As I noted in this column:

Medicare is a compulsory, top-down, single-payer system, more socialistic in every respect than Obamacare. Yet Bachmann’s leading the charge against any Medicare cuts. Typical was an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in which she stated, “The president’s plan for Medicare is, Medicare as senior citizens know it today won’t be there in the future if this president has his way, because his plan is Obamacare for senior citizens.”

No, it’s not. But if it were, that would be a big improvement. At least that’s what Mitt Romney used to say when he was governor of Massachusetts.

 We are seeing massive hypocrisy on the Republican side of this debate.

As the Reason writer notes, Romney could not have implemented his plan in Massachusetts without massive infusions of federal Medicare money.

The converse is true for Obama: He can't keep Medicare afloat without forcing millions of younger, healthier Americans to join mandatory insurance schemes that will charge them rates disproportional to their risk. All that extra money can be used to subsidize the below-market rates that Medicare pays doctors and hospitals.

The one point on which all advocates of the free market should agree is that the first step in any meaningful reform is to end Medicare.

You won't hear that from Romney. If he ever does become president, he's going to have a real problem trying to move for the repeal of a program he pretty much invented.

On the other hand, if he can explain his way out of this mess, maybe he deserves to be president.