Health Care’s Biggest Hypocrite — Or Hero

By TIMOTHY EGAN
The New York Times
January 6, 2010


For Democrats who see their political prospects this year as a tossup between catastrophic and merely horrible, there is hope on the horizon from a most unlikely source. No, not Rush Limbaugh, who recently praised his medical experience in the government-mandated, heavily unionized health care system of Hawaii. Mahalo to him.

One of the most prominent supporters of the main ideas behind the health care plan passed by the Democratic Senate is a top Republican prospect for president in 2012 — Mitt Romney.

He is not, of course, backing the Democrats. No, that would be political suicide. But until recently, he proudly claimed paternity for sweeping changes in Massachusetts that look an awful lot like Obamacare, as it will be known for the next two election cycles.

For now, the public doesn’t have a clue about Republican contributions to the biggest proposed change in American social policy in a generation. No surprise. Not a single one voted for the Senate bill.

Instead, the party’s voice has been dominated by people who make things up, and then condemn the rhetorical phantoms of their making. For that kind of skillful ventriloquism, Sarah Palin was recently awarded the “Lie of the Year” from Politifact.com, the public policy fact-checking service. She got a rare “Pants on Fire” designation for her whopper about nonexistent death panels.

Too bad the Republicans don’t get more credit, because they have done much to shape the bill — indirectly and inadvertently — mainly through Romney.

Asked recently about the Democratic bill, Romney dismissed it as something “which no one understands.” Au contraire, to use the language Romney mastered during his Mormon missionary days in France. Perhaps no one understands it better than Mitt Romney.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney helped produce a pioneering attempt at universal health care. The law, signed in 2006, bears a remarkable resemblance to the Senate bill.

There is no public option. But there is a requirement that nearly everyone get health insurance, or pay a tax penalty.

There are subsidies for the poor and middle class. And there is a public exchange, where people who work at home or own small businesses can have access to the same kind of insurance as big corporations.

Critics in Massachusetts say Romneycare is costing more than advertised. But according to the ex-governor, this heavy-handed approach — using tax penalties more stinging than the Senate plan to prod the uninsured — is working as it’s supposed to; the state is about 96 percent insured. Take it from the man likely to be the Republican frontrunner in 2012: “It’s a good model.”

Well, that was six months ago. At the time, it appeared that Democrats were going to pass some kind of government alternative to private insurance. So, Romney touted a different way — his state plan and the approximate model adopted last month by the Senate.

“Republicans are not the party of ‘no’ when it comes to health care reform,” Romney said in July. “This Republican is proud to be the first governor to insure all his state’s citizens.”

He may not be so proud now. His critics on the right, from American Spectator magazine to arch-rival Mike Huckabee, have taken aim at this unwitting ally of the Democratic plan.

Other Republicans have helped the Democrats as well. Remember John McCain’s health care plan? Okay, nobody does. But you can look it up: he wanted to tax the premiums of people with so-called Cadillac coverage. The Senate bill would do just that — although it’s not as radical and income-redistributing as McCain’s proposal.

The sad thing about the broken state of our politics is that good solutions, once they get branded by one party or the other, are quickly dismissed by the rabid partisans who drive early election cycles and dominate the airwaves.

If Romney had the guts to back his convictions, he would proudly praise the Senate plan for doing most of what he urged last summer and bequeathed to his state three years ago. But as Will Rogers said, if you ever injected truth into politics, you’d have no politics.

In a few months, Romney will hit the road with a book designed to compete with “Going Rogue,” Palin’s overstuffed mishmash of platitudes and inaccuracies. He plans a 17-state “No Apology” tour, named for the title of his tome: “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.”

One way to make good on that premise is to stand by his ideas on health care, now part of the defining document of a Democratic Congress in an election year.













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