Saturday, February 26, 2011

ROMNEYCARE ...again

Hi All
Awhile ago this morning I happened to see a blog decrying "Romneycare " and repeating Mike Huckabee's endless one note refrain that Romney should apologize for Massachusetts' HealthCare, thereby " flip-flopping " and giving the rest of the nattering nabobs an opportunity to again accuse Romney of changing his views on an issue. The article referred to a Boston Globe article of August , 2009......which in turn referred to a Commonwealth Fund Report looking at healthcare issues from 2003 through 2008. Following the trail of this " hit job " I soon found a few ( a lot ) of screwy data and outright false statements. I guess nobody bothers about truth anymore. Anyway, to wit....
The article said Massachusetts healthcare costs rose 40 % from 2003 to 2008 while the national average rose only 33 %. Of course, the article failed to mention that Massachusett's healthcare law was passed in.....2006
The Foundation Report cited by the article did NOT indicate how much Mass. premiums had changed from 2006 to 2008 and expressly indicated it could not comment on the effect of the law on healthcare costs since 2006.
Becoming interested, I took a look at the Foundation figures for 2009 for four specific states:
Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia and Massachusetts.

2009 Healthcare rankings
...................................... Alaska Arkansas Georgia Massachusetts
Access to healthcare.......... 48........ 44........... 36................ 1
Preventive Treatment........ 40........ 38........... 39............... 5
Equity .................................23........ 47........... 28............... 7
Healthy Lives..................... 27........ 48............ 37............... 6

Equity refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. That is, the difference in costs for low income, uninsured and minorities
The report points out that Massachusetts rose to No 1 in 2009 because of their healthcare program. In 2009 , the single payer healthcare premiums at private industry companies compared as follows:
Alaska $ 5293
Massachusetts $ 4,836
Georgia $ 4,160
Arkansas $ 3,923
National Average $ 4,360
I guess you get what you pay for. It should be noted that specific groups reflect the above results. For example, in Children's Health Care, Massachusetts is in the TOP QUARTILE. You guessed it, Georgia and Arkansas are both in the BOTTOM QUARTILE. Alaska is in the THIRD QUARTILE. ( The oil taxes sure didn't go to children's healthcare ).
To finish this narrative, I went to the Kaiser Foundation for some more illumination:
....................................Alaska Arkansas Georgia Massachusetts
Uninsured Residents.... 21 %..... 21 %....... 21 %.......... 6 %

Kaiser pointed out that 1.5 million more adults were uninsured in 2008 than 2007 due to the loss of employer sponsored coverage and that the number of uninsured will climb nationally to 61 Million by 2020. Many of these folks will just choose not to insure themselves using the EMTALA emergency room coverage as a primary ( free to them ) physician.

The bottom line to all of this is it is pretty obvious why Mass. residents like their healthcare plan. It obviously works. Can it be improved ? Of Course. Is it expensive ? Sure.....but maybe not as expensive as having no healthcare coverage. After all, there are 2 million poverty level folks in Georgia and 700,000 in Arkansas in their 21 % without insurance. Who pays if they get sick ? Or do we just let them die ?
Enough of this crap , Huckabee. You were Governor for 10 or 20 years according to your syncophant, Craig for Huck . Why didn't you fix Arkansas ? With all the North Slope oil in Alaska, why is Alaska's healthcare so poor ?
Before these folks write any more books, they need to go to a library and read a little

CraigS

19 comments:

Bill589 said...

I just don’t like the increasing of: the size of government, government’s power, and government intrusion into our lives. I don’t trust government. Neither did the founders. Conservatives want to govern their own lives. Socialism has never worked, and it is bankrupting Massachusetts. Obamacare will further bankrupt the United States.

Give me capitalism, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. This is what built the original 13 colonies into the greatest nation ever. The introduction of socialist programs is what has diminished our country. All work fine until “you run out of other people’s money.” I don’t want to borrow any more money my grandchildren will be working to pay back, as they struggle to have enough money for themselves.

Piss off a liberal: Work hard and pay for your own healthcare.

Bill589 said...

And, personally, I don’t view Mitt as flip-flopping on Abortion. He was wrong; he got smarter, and now he’s right. Under pressure, he tried limited socialism in Massachusetts. It can’t sustain itself. He can say it didn’t work, and now say the best answer would be free-market capitalism. I could say he was wrong, he got smarter, and now he’s right, and I can vote for him.

I can’t vote for someone who supports socialistic programs. They can not sustain themselves as shown by SSI, medicare, and medicaid.

BOSMAN said...

Craig, Excellent Post!

It just goes to show you that those being critical of Mitt Romney and the Massachusetts Health Care system, don't know what the hell they're talking about!

Anonymous said...

Craig, thanks for putting up these numbers, they really speak volumes.

DanL

CraigS said...

Bill
I understand exactly where you are coming from. But America today, and the world, looks nothing like the world of the founding fathers. Capitalism is the best system around. No question. But it cannot be totally uncontrolled or you have 12 hour work days and child labor and quack medicine. A country of 310 million people cannot be run as a confederation of 50 individual country states. The alternative, argued by Washington and Hamilton is a strong central government with a wise role to be used by wisemen.It is not possible to run General Motors like it was the old corner store. Likewise, the world won't allow America to run itself like an isolated, quaint remote provincial country.
Thus, if the country is big, the economy must be co-equally big. But profits are not all that teh country needs. Business must be harnessed to do the people's work. Other wise, we have another form of chaos. The problem is not big government...it is the shortage of big people, smart people, experienced people who have a vision of what the country can do and the ability to rise above the petty, silly foolishness that the media dotes on.
That's why I like Romney. That's why I don't like Huckabee. Huckabee's vision is of a pastoral, turn of the century ( 1900 ) America that is no more and cannot be recovered. We need leadrers who understand the 21 st century, understand capitalism and understand how to use government to improve the lot of the people, not ignore it.
I'm sorry, but 48th in healthcare in Arkansas sounds a lot like 30 th in world education. I don't like it and I don't think it's any rack to hang Huck's hat on

CraigS

Anonymous said...

in my opinion, things wouldve been better if romney was still governor there, im sure he wouldve implemented it differently than deval patrick would. However he did have changes in the romneycare bill that were vetoed by the democratic legislature.

Anonymous said...

First, I agree that trying to beat up Mitt Romney over the Massachusetts Health Care Law is wrong. In some ways, I like Mike Huckabee, but he's making himself look very bad with these unjustified attacks.

Secondly, the law that Massachusetts passed was written by a legislature that was 85% Democrat. No law written by an 85% Democrat legislature is going to be without some bad features. Mitt Romney did the best that anyone could in coming up with workable solutions. He also vetoed eight sections that he thought would drive up costs or hurt businesses. The legislature overrode all eight vetoes.

However, the comparisons you made have some points that are not entirely valid. Just as I don't like other candidates being unfair to Mr. Romney about what has happened in Massachusetts, I don't want to be unfair to other candidates.

I'm assuming that you included Georgia in the comparison because Newt Gingrich is from Georgia. That connection isn't fair. Newt Gingrich has never held a position in state government in Georgia. He doesn't have any more control over Georgia's policies and results than anyone else does. He hasn't held elective office for over ten years. Citing any Georgia statistic as evidence for or against Newt Gingrich is not valid.

For all of the rankings that are cited, some indication of what metrics are used to provide those rankings would help to determine how valuable they are. For instance, "Access to Healthcare" could include a measure of how far people have to travel to reach certain kinds of treatment. By that measure, Alaska may have horrible "access" because people must travel long distances in a state that covers so much area. Georgia and Arkansas are also at a natural disadvantage on that metric because they are bigger geographically than Massachusetts. "Preventative treatment" may include a measure of how much people have certain tests done but testing can often be as much a matter of culture as of competent policy. I'm not interested in an executive who measures success by changing the culture so that men are more willing to have their prostates poked and women more likely to have their breasts mashed. "Healthy lives" could be another metric that is highly dependent on the ideology of the people creating the metric. If they include a "wellness" aspect of "healthy living" and give credit for going to a concert but not for going hunting, Massachusetts will do better than Alaska, Arkansas, or Georgia.

Our country is going to have to make some hard choices about some issues. Maybe we won't let anyone die, but we need to stop letting people use emergency rooms as their way of getting free treatment before going back to their regular lives. People who get "free" treatment in emergency rooms may need to be forced to give up other freedoms that they currently enjoy until they have worked to pay off the value of the treatment that they received. That policy may seem hard-hearted, but we need something that will force people to take responsibility for their lives.


Bill

Evelio Perez said...

Craig, the good thing about informative posts like this one is that we still have time to change the anti-Mass. healthcare mindset, we all know that they are going to attack Romney mostly on this issue and the more that we explain the differences the better.
Great Post Craig......

CraigS said...

Bill
You are again absolutely on the money. There are very great differences between these four states.Massachusetts health care costs were always higher than most states for reasons unique to Massachusetts. I lived in Boston for 5 years so I am reasonably familiar with some of the reasons.By the way, I now live in Atlanta. I used to live a block away from Newt in East Cobb so that's one reason I included Georgia...but actually I wanted to show diversity and picked the home states of the 4 top possibilities to use as a comparison.It really has little to do with Newt, but it does, to your own point, indicate why Massachusetts is very different from Arkansas and Georgia and why voters in Massachusetts might like a law that voters in Georgia may not. In fact, voters in Massachusetts might require a law that voters in Georgia might reject. That is Romney's entire point.....why legislation at the state level is quite appropriate and legal and why Obamacare, at the Federal level is so objectionable and illegal. Exactly the point I'm trying to make. Nobody can say a law that works in Massachusetts has to work equally well in Arkansas. Nor can a law that doesn't work in Arkansas be, ipso facto, bad for Massachusetts.
So......what is Huckabee even talking about ?
CraigS

Right Wingnut said...

Good for Massachusetts. The problem is that they can't afford it. Just curious, how did Mass. rank in these catergories prior to passge of RomneyCare?

OhioJOE said...

"The problem is that they can't afford it. Just curious, how did Mass. rank in these categories prior to passage of RomneyCare?" Shhhh, they do not want to answer that question.

Anonymous said...

OJ and RWN. they seem to be able to afford it just fine. Why? Because the deadbeats now have to pay too. There is a safety net for those that legitimately cannot pay. Again to the point: What did Arkansas and AK do to solve this Problem? Nada. In fact, both states rank down at the bottom of health care. Not a great bragging point, if you ask me.

CraigS said...

RWN and OJ
To answer your question, I went back to the source. When Massachusett's healthcare plan was signed in 2006, Mass. ranked 8 in overall healthcare. It should be noted that in 2006,
Arkansas......48
Georgia ......42
Alaska........26
So, arguably, Massachusetts has improved from 8 to 1 with its plan.Arkansas improved from 48 to 44. Georgia improved from 42 to 36. Alaska declined from 26 to 48( 2006-2009 ??? )
It should also be pointed out that the U.S is spending 16 % of its total GDP on healthcare . The average of ALL other OECD countries is 8 % and yet our national healthcare statistics like infant mortality are near the bottom . See a problem ? The connection between expenditures and results is not so obvious. Look at Alaska and its oil tax revenue. Where are the results ?
CraigS

Right Wingnut said...

Craig,

Just a tip...when you provide data you should also provide a link. I found the site you are quoting from ( http://www.kff.org/ ), but I don't really want to take the time to dig up all of your data.

Now for the real challenge...see if you neatly package all of that into a 30 second tv or radio ad.

CraigS said...

Hi RWN
Actually, I am quoting from two sources:
http:// www.kff.org and
http:// www.commonwealthfund.org

Hope you get some time to run through these data sources. Obviously, a lot of the anti Mitt rhetoric has had little time to view this factual data. If they did.....they would become
" Flip-Floppers"

CraigS

Anonymous said...

GREAT POST Craig!

As Mitt Romney would say, "Facts are stubborn things".

zeke

Noelle said...

Great and informative post Craig. Thanks for putting it together.

Mitt Romney 2012!!!

Anonymous said...

Just a note, Craig, about infant mortality rates. It is true that our country is often given poor grades on infant mortality; however, I would like to talk a little about these comparisons.

I lived in Japan for three years. They have mandatory abortions for women who are infected with measles, or certain other illnesses when they are pregnant. These laws do not exist in the USA. Women are able to make their own choices in these situations.

Although I think our abortion rate is far too high, many countries have a much high abortion rate. Teen pregnancies are lower in other countries, but we don't always know if that is due to better reproductive behavior, or if it is due to abortion. Young teen pregnancies are high risk. More American young people are likely to choose life for their children.

Of course, our teen pregancy rate is often connected with drugs, which puts babies at a higher risk. This is absolutely tragic.

We also have many people who use fertility methods to have their own children. These increase the risk of preterm births. How these factors compare with other countries, I don't know, but it is important to ask the questions.

AZ

CraigS said...

Anonymous AZ
You are quite right of course. Just the reason not to use the Massachusetts experience to equate Mass. Healthcare with the needs of Alabama or Texas....as Obamacare does and as Romney has, quite correctly, pointed out as a mistake.
CraigS