Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page again slammed Mitt Romney's health care debacle in Massachusetts, which will again, prompt a link parade of other conservative institutions that have excoriated the program he continually champions*.
The WSJ:
In a rational world, the prognosis for ObamaCare would wait on the evidence in Massachusetts, given that the commonwealth's 2006 program closely resembles what Democrats are trying to do in Washington. If the results were widely known, it might be dead on arrival.
The Massachusetts law, which was championed by former GOP Governor Mitt Romney, imposed an individual mandate, requiring nearly all residents to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty.
For 15 years Massachusetts has also imposed mandates known as guaranteed issue and community rating -- meaning that insurers must cover anyone who applies, regardless of health or pre-existing conditions, and also charge everyone the same premium (or close to it). Yet these mandates allow people to wait until they're sick, or just before they're about to incur major medical expenses, to buy insurance. This drives up costs for everyone else, which helps explain why small-group coverage in Massachusetts is so much more expensive than in most of the country. Mr. Romney argued -- as Democrats are arguing now -- that the individual mandate would make that problem disappear, since everyone is always supposed to be covered.
Keep reading to get more specifics, and more ammo for when your Romney-supporting-friend chats up the plan as the 8th Wonder of the Health Care World (the other Seven Wonders being closely related to the resurgent careers of Raul Ibanez and Dara Torres).
*Link parade! Here, Here, Here, and Here.
To read a transcript from July 2 of Romney curiously hailing the plan and results, click here.
