Monday, February 28, 2011

Mike Huckabee Is Deceitful

Sorry for another anti-Huckabee post, but he has really set me off with his disingenuous attack on Romneycare. It's time to fight back. Jonathan Martin noted today that Huckabee didn't quite get his facts right.
Mike Huckabee goes after Romneycare with particular vigor in his new book, but a Republican defender of the plan notes to me that some of those attacks seem to lack factual support. The book paints Romneycare broadly as an unpopular, acknowledged failure -- when it remains quite popular in the (liberal) state. And the details seem, at best, painted with a very broad brush.
One particularly unfair attack: “A noble goal, indeed," Huckabee writes of Romney's plan. "But when the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation stepped into the lab…they found that health care, which was 16 percent of the state budget in 1990, had jumped to 35 percent in 2010.”
The problem: Romney's planned was passed in 2006, not 1990. By that time, health care costs had jumped in Massachusetts (as they had around the country), adding up to 32% of the fiscal year 2006 budget -- according to the same organization's 2005 assessment. So the growth has been from 32% to 35%, hardly out of line with the national picture.
Huckabee also argues that Romney's plan drove up costs for individuals while care declined: “If everyone in Massachusetts is paying more, it must mean patients are receiving better care, right? In fact, just the opposite is happening.”
But while the state pays substantially more for health care than does Huckabee's Arkansas (though less than states like Ohio and New Hampshire), premiums are down for people purchasing care in the individual market -- the focus of the reform -- and have, in broad terms, shown increases "similar to the national trend rates," according to a study from the free market-oriented Pioneer Institute last year.
More clearly, the evidence that people see the quality of their health care declining as spending rises seems weak: A 2009 New England Journal of Medicine survey found 85% of state doctors saying health care had either no impact or a positive one. The doctors had other complaints, but a mere 6% said the quality of care had declined. Surveys also show the plan is popular with consumers, and the legislature is hardly rushing to repeal it -- though the state is struggling to contain the cost of health care spending.
So, so, so deceitful. 

10 comments:

Bill589 said...

Yep. I researched a bit on why Mitt people don’t like Huck. I found several good reasons why from 2007 - 2008. Here is another one. And he is supposed to be a minister? He’s a snake in the grass. There is good reason why Mitt people don’t like Huck.

I’ve recently read that Mitt doesn’t like Huck, and I can easily understand why. I’ve also recently read, and heard on tv, that Huck doesn’t like Mitt. But they gave no reason why, and I can’t find one. Is it merely because Mitt stands in Huck’s path to the White House?

I am a Palinista. But I like Mitt. Even though some of his supporters really piss me off sometimes. I don’t blame him.

Dave said...

Pablo,

Thanks for this post. The sheer quantity of misinformation on Mitt's initiative indicates the desperation that's out there. It can't all be journalistic incompetence.

The truth will get out, and you're contributing to that process.

BTW, The Epic/MRI poll that just came out shows Mitt beating Obama in Michigan.....one of several states that ONLY Mitt can win among our candidates.

Closer To Home said...

Absolutely right, Pablo.

Here is the link to the study from the free market-oriented Pioneer Institute referenced in the article. It paints a very different picture than the Huckster.

http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/100113_interim_report_card1.pdf

Anonymous said...

jealousy and envy is the reason why. Huck cries victim whenever anyone challenges him. Romney's campaign ads against Huckabee were facts of his record, yet tax hike mike cried victim and accused romney of negative attack ads. huck likes nothing more than to stop romney from succeeding and becoming president.

He's envious and jealous of romney's looks, money, success, record, intelligence, wife and who knows what else.

Anonymous said...

Don't apologize for turning over the rocks and exposing Huck's slimy, writhing lies. Good blog Pablo.

Anonymous said...

According to the "notes" in the back of the book, Huckabee got his information from "As Massachusetts Health 'Reform' Goes, So Could Go Obamacare" from the Washington Post July 19, 2010 and "The Forbidding Arithmetic of Healthcare Reform" from the Boston Globe June 28, 2009.

Anonymous said...

So why is posting "facts" so much different for Romney than for Huckabee?

marK said...

Bill589,

Yeah, I've read in a number of places where Mitt doesn't like Mike. It is a common assumption made by quite a few people. Yet there really isn't any evidence for it.

When the various 2008 GOP hopefuls dropped out way back then, they all buried the hatchet and began working together to get John McCain elected. It was all "let bygones be bygones". The sole exception was Mike Huckabee.

Long after Mitt had dropped out, he continued to attack Mitt. He wrote letters. He gave speeches. He raved about it in interviews. He did everything he could to drag Romney's name through the mud.

Mike wrote a book about the 2008 entitled "Doing the Right Thing". He filled page after page after page with anything and everything he could think of to attack Mitt.

And how did Mitt react? He refused to engage with him. After each Huckabee attack, Mitt would either ignore it, or say something along the lines of "Well, things happen in campaigns". If anything, Mitt's soft answers seemed to enrage Huckabee even more. He became even more obsessed with tearing down Mitt.

It bordered on the ridiculous. Even after the November election, Mike was still attacking Romney.

And how did Mitt react? Through it all, he remained absolutely steady in his determination not to sink to Mike's level. You will not find a single criticism by Mitt of Mike since Mitt dropped out of the race three years ago last month.

Yes, you will read in multiple places where people claim that Mitt does not like Mike, but the evidence just isn't there. They just assume that with all the attacks Huckabee has made at Mitt, that Mitt hates him. And you know what happens when you assume...

I suspect that Mitt is somewhat amused by it all. After all, Mike is supposed to be the "True Christian" while Mitt is supposed to be the "fake Christian", yet who is one bearing the grudge? Who is them one refusing to forgive and forget?

You have to admit, the irony does have a funny side to it.

If he doesn't snap out of it soon, Mike Huckabee will learn to regret it. There is nothing wrong with genuine disagreement, but obsessive dislike if not hatred like we see in Mike almost always ends badly for the obsessed.

Anonymous said...

Well said, Mark. It makes a good story to call it a feud, but it just isn't.

These petty attacks don't hurt Romney at all, but reveal him as the better man. I don't know why Huck doesn't understand that. I guess he simply cannot resist.

-Martha

Anonymous said...

I agree with you MarK, there isn't any evidence to support the idea that Mitt doesn't like Mike. Now, I assume Mitt doesn't like Mike, or at least doesn't want to be around him, because Mike is always so negative about Mitt. However, Mitt has so far kept his temper and his tongue. I admire him for it.

Pablo is right about some of the accusations flung at Mitt over his health care reform. Plenty of what is said and assumed is not really true. Massachusetts voted to put Scott Brown in as the 41st vote AGAINST Obamacare. When you look at the details of that campaign, Brown didn't campaign against Massachusetts health care, he campaigned to save their health care plan from the ravages of the federal government. Not quite the interpretation often given by conservatives in the endless Mitt bashing.

AZ