Mitt Romney, The Father Of Gay Marriage In America, By Illegal Executive Fiat

By Gary P Jackson

This isn't about gay marriage, it's about Mitt Romney's complete and total lack of respect for the Rule of Law.

We all know Mitt Romney is the father of socialized medicine in America, and one of two people in the Republic with a socialist plan named after them, the other being Barack Obama.

Well, it seems that's not the only usurpation this Big Government extremist has visited on the people of Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole. You see Romney illegally FORCED gay marriage on the people of the Bay State, even after the state's Supreme Court banned the practice.

Ann Barnhardt discusses this illegal situation as well as more despicable acts by Romney here.

Bryan Fischer has written this:

Former Massachusetts' governor Mitt Romney announced his official intention to run for the presidency this week.

His candidacy has one potentially insurmountable problem: America has same-sex marriage because of Mitt Romney.

This is just one of several huge vulnerabilities Mitt Romney has as he tries to convince the members of his own party that he is conservative enough to claim the Republican mantle for 2012. His flip-flops on abortion, RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

But same-sex marriage is the biggie. The first domino to fall in the crusade to give marital recognition to same sex unions fell in Massachusetts, and it fell because then-governor Romney pushed it over.

While the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared that Massachusetts' marriage law was unconstitutional in the summer of 2003, the Court explicitly declared that the original law, which does not authorize same-sex marriage, was left intact. "Here, no one argues that striking down the marriage laws is an appropriate form of relief."

The court acknowledged that the original law, left intact by its ruling, banned homosexual marriages and gave the legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate." The legislature did precisely nothing.

Gov. Romney, acting on his own, ordered town clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples on May 17, 2004, in contravention of Massachusetts state law and under threat of termination.

Gov. Romney in essence told these town clerks that if they did not break the law, he would fire them.

Town clerks meekly complied, and became lawbreakers in the process. Massachusetts state marriage law is quite explicit: "Whoever, not being duly authorized by the laws of the commonwealth undertakes to join persons in marriage therein shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both."

Re-read that carefully. Town clerks must be "authorized by the laws of the commonwealth" to issue marriage licenses. They are not allowed to do so under the authorization of the Supreme Judicial Court or the governor. The "laws of the commonwealth" to this day do not authorize the granting of same-sex marriage licenses.

Massachusetts state marriage law has never been changed. Same-sex marriage is still illegal in the Bay State.

So the bottom line here is that Gov. Romney broke state law and ordered his town clerks to do the same.

After Gov. Romney legalized same-sex marriage by fiat in a burst of executive branch activism, Connecticut's Supreme Court followed suit in 2008 and Iowa's Supreme Court in 2009. Same-sex marriage was not legalized through the legislative process anywhere in the United States until Vermont's legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto in April of 2009.

There are just two states now, New Hampshire being the other, where the elected representatives of the people have solemnized same-sex partnerships. In every other case, same-sex marriage has been forced down the throats of residents by an activist judiciary or, in the case of Massachusetts, by an activist governor imposing an activist ruling on his own citizens.

For time and eternity, Mitt Romney will go down in history as the man who abused the power of his office to give the United States homosexual matrimony.

For most social conservatives, this will simply be a breach too far.

For the record, I think marriage should be between one man and one woman. With that said, I also believe in States Rights. If a state, through LEGAL legislative process, wants to have gay marriage, then fine. This doesn't effect me, as I don't live in such a state. As long as it's done legally, then no one has any ground to stand on.

Here's the problem though. Mitt Romney didn't do it legally. In fact, he defied his state's Supreme Court and shoved this unwanted law down the people of Massachusetts throat's. This puts Mitt Romney in the same box with Marxist radical Barack Obama, who thinks the Rule of Law doesn't apply to him either. This makes Mitt Romney, like Obama, an incredibly dangerous man who has no respect for the Constitution, or Separation of Powers.

As reported above, thanks to Mitt Romney's radical activism, extremists in other states have been emboldened to by-pass the legislative process, and through judicial fiat, created  a process that allows gay marriage. Had Romney not acted illegally, and gotten away with it, would these other states have been so bold?

Gay marriage is the first issue visited on the Republic by Mitt Romney, the second being RomneyCare, a TOTAL usurpation of individual Liberty and Freedom. In fact, one of the most egregious acts of tyranny visited on mankind in the past century. Worse, RomneyCare embolden the Marxist democrats in the Obama regime to go for their own version. RomneyCare was the blueprint for ObamaCare.

With Romney, one quickly sees a pattern of a dictator, not a public servant. Romney had absolutely NO PROBLEM stripping away Liberty and Freedom from every single Massachusetts resident "for the greater good." Forcing every Massachusetts resident to buy something, just because they are alive and living there. This goes against absolutely EVERYTHING this nation was founded on.

Romney also had no problem forcing gay marriage on the people of the Bay State for support from activist groups. The man sold out his people for a few pieces of silver. 

Mitt Romney is just as dangerous as Barack Obama and can never be allowed to have the power of elected office again. The man has no respect for the Rule of Law or the First Principles our nation was founded on.

This nation must reject Mitt Romney, and all those like him. There is no place for men like him in our political system.

If we continue to elect men like Mitt Romney, our Republic will not survive.

Ann Barnhardt Not All That Happy With Mitt Romney

For the love of all that is right and good, don't give this jerk Romney any money. ~ Ann Barnhardt

Brutal

Video: Sarah Palin On Mitt Romney's Challenges

Mitt Romney Turns Failure Into Performance Art

Seppuku: noun \se-pü kü, se-pə-kü\.

A highly ritualized political performance, as complicated as chado (tea ceremony). The principle difference is that at the end of chado, one is merely nauseated from too much green tea, whilst at the end of seppuku, one is politically dead.

Last Thursday Mitt Romney gave his speech on health care. It was quite a performance.

He was getting hammered before the speech, and it was suggested Romney's best bet was to quit the Republican Party and then convince Obama to dump Joe Biden and join that ticket. That was mild compared to what was to come after his speech.

In fact, Romney was hammered so hard, that I actually started feeling sorry for the guy, but I'm much better now.

First, the speech, if you can stand all of it:



Breath taking, huh? The guy is using the 10th Amendment as cover. Now Romney is right as far as it goes. The states are sovereign entities and ARE supposed to be laboratories. States SHOULD be free to try things out without interference of the federal government. Sarah Palin has been saying this for years, and Texas Governor Rick Perry wrote an entire book about it!

What's troubling about Romney is the fact his default position was to take Freedom and Liberty AWAY from Massachusetts residents. To propose a Big Government, rather than a market based solution.This is the way a liberal always does things.

We've written extensively about the failures of RomneyCare, from bankrupting the state, to longer waiting periods, it's been the canary in the coal mine for those concerned about Obama's identical legislation. Massachusetts is experiencing a terrible problem with freeloaders coming in from other states and ever foreign counties getting free healthcare courtesy of the already overburdened Bay State taxpayer. It's the very definition of failure.

Romney, for his part, has stated many times that if he had a chance at a do-over, he'd still do the exact same thing. That's pretty incredible when you come to think of it.

Reactions were swift and strong. Democrat pundit Kirstin Powers tweeted:

Has #Romney ever met a Republican primary voter? This speech is tone deaf.

Mollie Hemingway added:

I think Romney took the WSJ suggestion to run as Obama's mate a BIT too seriously.

This tweet from Philip Klein really says it all:

Romney making passionate case for why it's okay to violate personal freedom at state level

Questionable grammar aside, Jonah Goldberg captured the essence of the entire spectacle:

Gosh, I hope he doesn't end this by taking out a can of gasoline and then pours it over his head.

Jennifer Rubin wrote:

This morning the Wall Street Journal editorial board accused Mitt Romney of being a technocrat and not a conservative. In his speech in Ann Arbor, Mich., today, Romney proved the editorial board correct. You could tell it wasn’t going to be a good outing when it became clear that a tiny room of about 100 invited guests was the setting. Message: Only handpicked friends could be counted on not to boo or laugh.

Avik Roy over at NRO [National RINO Online] went after Romney HARD:

Mitt Romney just gave a more articulate defense of Obamacare than President Obama ever has. He continues to believe that the individual mandate is a good idea. His effort to make a distinction between Romneycare and Obamacare was not persuasive: If anything, he convincingly made the opposite case, that Romneycare and Obamacare are based on the same fundamental concept.

In recent months, Romney has claimed that Romneycare was a specific solution for the specific needs of Massachusetts. But in his remarks, he did not name one specific aspect of the Massachusetts health-care environment that is unique to that state. If there are no important differences between the Massachusetts health-care system and that of other states, why shouldn’t he believe that Romneycare should be the model for every other state?

Indeed, here is what Romney wrote in the Wall Street Journal on April 11, 2006, the day before he signed his signature health-care legislation:

"How much of our health-care plan applies to other states? A lot. Instead of thinking that the best way to cover the uninsured is by expanding Medicaid, they can instead reform insurance."

The final straw, for me, was when Romney said that "there’s not a lot that I want to borrow from France and Switzerland." I’m with him on France, but Switzerland (despite its own individual-mandate issues) has the most market-oriented health-care system in the developed world. I would love to borrow Switzerland’s exceptionally low levels of state-health spending, which they manage to achieve while providing universal coverage and high-quality care. Their tax rates aren’t shabby either.

The Wall Street Journal compared Romney's speech with Evil Knievel's failed attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon!

Mr. Romney also tried to draw a contrast between his new campaign plan and Mr. Obama's reform, saying, for instance, that it would create no new health-care bureaucracies. He neglected to mention that his state plan did precisely that. Mr. Romney's political appointees converted the architecture of the "connector" that was supposed to support individual and small-business insurance choice into a regulatory body dedicated to stamping it out.

The political tragedy is that Mr. Romney could have emerged as one of ObamaCare's most potent critics had he made different choices two years ago amid one of the country's most consequential debates in generations. He might have said that as Governor he made a good-faith effort to resolve some of health care's long-running dysfunctions, but that it hadn't worked out and that's why state experiments are valuable.

Mr. Romney also sold his plan using the same theories and language as Mr. Obama, and he might have rebutted the President from experience and evidence. Instead, he has lashed himself to the contradiction of attacking Mr. Obama's plan while claiming his own is different.

Many people have tried to talk Mr. Romney down from this daredevil campaign act, but Mr. Romney privately says he doesn't want to reinforce the rap he had in 2008 that he had reinvented himself too often. As a political matter, however, we think it's better to change positions than to try to defend the intellectually indefensible.

Mr. Romney is not taking our advice, as his nearby letter shows. He even said yesterday that he would do it all over again in Massachusetts, which means he is in for a year in which Republicans attack him on policy while Democrats defend him on policy but attack him as a hypocrite. Who knows what GOP voters will make of all this, but we won't be surprised if Mr. Romney's campaign suffers as many broken bones (433) as Knievel.

Ouch!

Michael F. Cannon from the CATO Institute was also brutal:

In his much-heralded health care address in Michigan today, former Massachusetts governor (and Republican presidential hopeful) Mitt Romney made news by offering… absolutely nothing new.

Rather than admit that RomneyCare was a mistake, Romney once again defended the individual mandate he imposed in Massachusetts, calling it "what I believe is right for Massachusetts." Why? Because Massachusetts had a free-rider problem. Never mind that all states have a free-rider problem. (So why is it not the solution for other states, too?) Never mind the indications that Massachusetts’s free-rider problem is getting worse, not better, under RomneyCare. His defense of his individual mandate was indistinguishable from those delivered by countless ObamaCare zombies.

It’s almost as if Mandate Mitt is keeping the hypocrisy alive because he’s afraid no one will pay attention to him once it’s gone.

The only novelty I saw was when he admitted that RomneyCare has become a political liability. Not enough of one, evidently.

Everyone is saying the same thing: As "smart" as Mitt Romney is, he seems to lack basic intelligence and common sense. One of the continuing themes over the past few years, as RomneyCare's full destructive power has become more understandable, is Romney and his fans blaming those "rascally democrats" for messing with Mitt's brilliant plan. This really calls into question whether or not Romney understands how government actually works.

If Romney didn't get that allowing the camel's nose under the tent, the liberal's foot in the door, by creating RomneyCare, would lead to nothing but disaster, then why is anyone considering him a serious candidate for anything but retirement from the political world?

Romney has now taken to saying that HE, and evidently only HE, is capable of running such a magnificent plan.

If only us rubes would understand.

The speech itself was arrogant and very combative. That's understandable. Here's a cat trying to defend the indefensible, while at the same time trying to keep an inviable candidacy alive.

Now it would be easy to continue to shake one's head in disbelief, wondering how Romney got this far in life, but that's honestly the wrong message here.

Jennifer Rubin got it right. Romney is a technocrat. A central planner in the very best tradition of any Big Government Statist, be they socialist or communist.

This is the entire democrat party philosophy in a nut shell. A centrally planned government, where a handful of people in Washington control every single aspect of one's lives. They tell you what to eat, what to drink, what to drive, what kind of light bulbs you can have, and even the kind of toilet you must use. I suspect at some point they'll tell you WHEN you can use it, as well.

The bottom line is Mitt Romney is the "little intellectual elite" that Ronald Reagan warned the nation about in his iconic 1964 speech. BTW, so are guys like Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch Daniels, all of whom have embraced something similar to RomneyCare at one point or another.

Daniels has a mini RomneyCare in place. Pawlenty lusted after one until it became political suicide. [Sort of like his cap and tax legislation that Minnesota is trying to repeal] Gingrich is still in the process of "nuancing" his love for the individual mandate.

Let me leave readers, especially those who even remotely think Mitt Romney, or the other candidates mentioned above, are worthy of consideration, with this from Ronald Reagan. I suggest you listen to the entire speech, every second of it.

Though he was talking about democrats [and it still applies to them today] he's describing modern day establishment Republicans perfectly:

INCOMPETENCE: High Costs And Less Care: RomneyCare’s Unhappy Anniversary

Just how bad is Mitt Romney's "crowning achievement"?

THIS bad: [emphasis mine]

The Massachusetts Medical Society found that 56% of physicians are not taking on new patients. Wait times for appointments are climbing. Just two years after reform took root, one clinic in Western Massachusetts had amassed a waiting list of 1,600 patients…

Of the previously uninsured individuals who have signed up, 68% are receiving free or subsidized coverage.

Many of these people aren’t even citizens of Massachusetts. A recent report from the Massachusetts Inspector General found that state agencies have failed to implement controls to prevent ineligible people from making claims. In 2010 millions of dollars were spent on medical services for individuals from 48 other states and several foreign countries.

Read more from Sally Pipes' stunning report here.

For those still holding on to hope that ObamaCare might just work, RomneyCare is the canary in the coal mine.

This has been a failure on every level, and while it's costing those poor devils in the Bay State millions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse, ObamaCare will cost Americans billions, if not trillions in the same manner.

People need to wake up and demand ObamaCare be repealed ASAP.

Now I know a lot of people are working desperately to excuse Mitt Romney from any responsibility from this fiasco, or rationalize it away, but that dog just won't hunt.

One of the talking points I see people test driving now, is it's not really RomneyCare, but "PatrickCare," named after Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick who took Romney's place. You see it's all those rascally democrats fault that Mitt's "glorious gift to mankind" is all screwed up.

Ridiculous!

Look, Massachusetts is a liberal state. The fact that Romney couldn't foresee this happening, when he gleefully signed this horrific piece of legislation into law, speaks volumes about Mitt's complete lack of common sense and understanding of the consequences of his actions.

In 1961 Ronald Reagan warned Americans that liberals would use socialized medicine to gain control of every facet of government, as well as control of many facets of everyone's personal life. To impose Socialism on the people.



Now this was 50 years ago. You mean to tell me a "conservative" like Mitt Romney [snort] never heard Reagan's Operation Coffee Cup message before?

I mean Romney once told us he was a "Reagan Conservative." Of course that was before he teamed up with Jeb Bush to tell everyone "the era of Reagan is over"! Romney is a lot like Barack Obama. It seems, like Obama, all of Mitt's statements and proclamations have expiration dates.

Recently Romney has been trying to do major damage control by crying ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional, which it is. It's also immoral. However, Romney had absolutely no problem forcing citizens of his state to buy insurance. In fact, As Jennifer Rubin points out, Mitt was all in: [emphasis mine]

Gruber tells me, "What I can tell you is that there was an active debate on the individual mandate." He explains, "On one hand, Romney felt people were free-riding" on the health care system — that is, remaining uninsured but burdening the government health care system when they became sick or injured.

On the other hand, Gruber says, was the "freedom" argument about the mandate. He says, "What I’d like to think carried the day was that I pointed out that without the mandate you would spend the same money and cover fewer people."

Gruber says in the one face-to-face meeting he had with Romney, it was clear Romney had made the "final call." Gruber tells me: "He was the champion of the plan. He really was the consummate management consultant."

And, Gruber says, the plan that passed and is now operating is not fundamentally different from the individual mandate plan that Romney "championed." Gruber says, "The framework is basically the same." Moreover, Romney understood that the bill would be a framework, with the details to be filled in later (e.g., the definition of "affordable" health care). "He said so at the signing ceremony," Gruber recollects. So the notion that the plan was hijacked by the Democratic-controlled legislature is simply not so, he asserts.

It is equally true in Gruber’s mind that without the Massachusetts example, Obama’s individual mandate plan in all likelihood would not have passed.

Read more here.

Interesting huh. Gruber, who wrote the RomneyCare legislation, is calling Mitt a bald faced liar for blaming democrats for his own stupidity.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what it is, stupidity. Stupidity with gross incompetence mixed in for good measure.

Mitt Romney, not some random democrat, is the Father of Socialized Medicine in America.

Not Nancy Pelosi.

Not Harry Reid.

Not Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney owns it.

A lot of people are still pushing Mitt Romney for President. Why I have no clue.

The man's record as Governor was nothing to brag about. And he's proven he doesn't even understand basic human nature. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, and even a modest amount of working knowledge of how Big Government boondoggles always turn out, could have told Romney that his RomneyCare plan would end up exactly like it has: A complete and total disaster.

Mitt Romney simply doesn't have the character, intelligence, or ability to comprehend the unintended consequences of his dubious actions. The man isn't qualified to be the president of the local yacht club, let alone the President of these United States.

As Mitt Announces Presidential Run: Democrats To Plan Celebrate The Fifth Anniversary Of Romneycare

By Gary P Jackson

One has to wonder how tone deaf Mitt Romney really is.

Nothing in recent memory has angered the public as has ObamaCare, the unconstitutional take over of America's health care system. More than half of the states are suing the Obama regime over this mess, and it's already been declared unconstitutional in federal court. And yet, with the looming fifth anniversary of the disastrous implementation of Mitt Romney's monster .... RomneyCare .... which has been widely credited as the blueprint used to create ObamaCare, Mitt announces his presidential run!

Oh, and check out his nifty stylized "R"! It's even worse looking than this!

From Cubachi:

On the fifth anniversary of the passage of Romneycare, the democrats are setting up a party Tuesday to mark the occasion, including a "Thank You Mitt Romney" cake.

In New Hampshire, Democrat party officials are urging supporters to tweet Romney to thank him for standing "shoulder-to-shoulder with Senator Kennedy to sign Massachusetts’ historic health care reform law."

Read more here.

I'll be honest. I simply don't get it. Romney has more baggage that Southwest Airlines hauls in a day. So many flip flops he makes John Kerry [who served in Vietnam] look principled. His record as Governor is case study in how NOT to do things. Can someone please tell my exactly how Mitt Romney has a path to the White House? Even without RomneyCare wrapped tightly around this guy like a shroud of shame, there is absolutely nothing that says this guy is qualified to lead the nation. Nothing.

Flashback: Under RomneyCare Massachusetts Resorts To Group Visits With The Doctor

Since RomneyCare served as the blue print for ObamaCare, it's important to look at some of the consequences of Mitt Romney's creation. Health care rationing was a reality from the start, and residents of the Bay State were herded like cattle into doctors' offices for group exams.

From the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons:

Massachusetts, the proud model for likely Obama-Kennedy reform, is trying a new answer for the problem of a severe doctor shortage: group appointments.

Deluged with demand from newly insured patients, doctors have no room on their appointment schedules for all the new patients. At Holyoke Medical Center, it takes 4 months to get an appointment. A patient with chronic Lyme disease can’t find a single primary physician in three towns who will accept a new patient, so she goes to the emergency room, recounting her history to a different intake nurse, for all medical needs, including her regular prescriptions.

The Massachusetts universal coverage law required 440,000 more people to buy insurance or sign up with expanded Medicaid, and every one of them has to have a primary doctor in order to get into the system. Yet in the past year, 18 primary physicians have left the Amherst area (All Things Considered). , NPR 11/20/08

Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates now features "shared medical appointments." Dr. Gene Lindsey, reputedly HVMA’s best cardiologist, sees all his patients in groups. HGMA plans to offer group appointments with 50 physicians and nurse practitioners (Liz Kowalcyzk, "The Doctor Will See All of You Now," Boston Globe 11/30/08).

One group appointment, featured in a Boston Globe video showed nine patients seated in folding chairs around a table with snacks. Dr. Erickson shook hands with each of them and examined them one by one, discussing their medical details aloud. The video showed him listening to and percussing chests through clothing.

[ .... ]

Patients have to sign a form promising not to reveal information they learn about other patients.

The doctor can bill for nine individual visits for the time period in which he previously could have seen only four to six individual patients. He can thus increase his productivity without having to work more.

There were 58 comments posted by Dec 1, and not all patients were pleased.

One wrote: "Nice business model if you can achieve it. Convince state lawmakers to require everyone to ‘get’ medical insurance which is really privatized medical taxation. Now convince the check-writing insuracrats that it’s justified to pay you the same for less service. Sorry, sharing the appointment with others is less service. This is little different than a taxi driver charging each of five passengers the same fare to go from location A to destination B. At least the taxi driver doesn’t provide less service."

Another wrote: "There aren’t enough doctors because doctors are required to practice high-speed cookbook medicine…. So the answer is to speed it up more so patients can listen to canned speeches together?"

Other descriptions: "Third-world standard of care: many people being seen by a doctor at the same time, sharing…germs." A "commoditization" of human beings. Having to listen to all the other patients is a "tax on people’s time."

[ .... ]

The appointments are "voluntary"—although possibly the only kind available for months.

Read more here.

This was written in 2008, not long after RomneyCare was put into practice. Since then it's become a bigger disaster. The Dayton Tribune reports: Romneycare is bankrupting Massachusetts:

Romneycare in Massachusetts has proven that not only does government run healthcare not work it has crippled the state’s economy. And Massachusetts, often referred to as Taxachusetts is one of the heavies taxed states in the country so raising taxes even more to cover these costs is not really an option for them, but it undoubtedly won’t stop the liberal policy makers there from trying anyway. After all these government bureaucrats aren’t on the same healthcare system the rest of the ‘little’ people are on. They get the best coverage available at the expense of the taxpayer.

Read more here.

More on Massachusetts' forced rationing of health care:

A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the state’s marquee universal health care program afloat financially.

The July 16 recommendations, the Boston Globe explained, would result in a situation where "patients could find it harder to get procedures they want but are of questionable benefit if doctors are operating within a budget. And they might find it more difficult to get care wherever they want, if primary doctors push to keep patients within their accountable care organization."

The Globe stressed that the recommendations would "dramatically change how doctors and hospitals are paid, essentially putting providers on a budget as a way to control exploding healthcare costs and improve the quality of care." "Budget" is a more politically acceptable word for rationing. The Globe also noted that "consumer advocates said patients are going to have to be educated about the new system." Yes, apparently they will have to get used to having their healthcare rationed.

Read MUCH more here.

Even worse, Romney's "man caused disaster" is costing the rest of the country as well. Massachusetts received massive amounts of federal dollars to prop RomneyCare up. [emphasis mine]

The Massachusetts fiscal crisis is extraordinary because the state has been raking in the bucks from federal stimulus money for its healthcare experiment. The nonpartisan Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center noted:

Nationally, one of the largest single allocations within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is more than $128 billion provided to states for health care. Massachusetts will receive an estimated $17.7 billion through ARRA programs, grants, and direct benefits.

This means Massachusetts, with just two percent of the nation’s population, will receive nearly 14 percent of stimulus money for healthcare, seven times its share.

But that hasn’t been enough money for the burgeoning Massachusetts healthcare budget, already under assault by high premiums for state employees and Medicare and Medicaid premiums.

Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill warns that Romneycare "is bankrupting the state and would have bankrupted our state if not for the federal government being overly generous with Medicaid reimbursements over these last four years. They’ve really propped the system up to keep it in place."

Yet, over in Washington, D.C., Democratic leaders trumpeted the similar healthcare package on the federal level as a deficit reducer.

If the American taxpayer is having to bail out Massachusetts because of RomneyCare, just who in the hell is going to bail out the United States if ObamaCare isn't repealed?

Read more here.

When one reads about the monster Mitt Romney created, it's a long tale of disaster after disaster. It's highly unpopular with the people of the Bay State. It's caused Massachusetts residents nothing but grief.

RomneyCare served as the blueprint for ObamaCare. It's the canary in the coal mine. It's why we must repeal ObamaCare in it's entirety, and never allow Mitt Romney, or anyone like him, near elected office again.

RomneyCare Massively Unpopular In The Bay State

Health care continues to define Mitt Romney and weigh down his presidential campaign like an iron stethoscope

Mitt Romney's signature accomplishment, RomneyCare continues to be as unpopular as hemorrhoids. From the latest Suffolk University polling:

Health care and Mitt Romney

Massachusetts health care was seen as working by 38 percent of registered voters, while just under half (49 percent) said it is not working, and 13 percent were undecided. Asked if Mitt Romney’s role in health care here would help or hurt his presidential campaign, 54 percent of voters said it would hurt; 22 percent felt it would help; and 22 percent were undecided.

"Health care continues to define Mitt Romney and weigh down his presidential campaign like an iron stethoscope," said Paleologos.

Read more here.

Mitt Romney: I Will Never Be President Of The United States, Nor Will I Be A Serious Candidate For The Office

National Review Online, having burned through every establishment hack trying to excite the American people with their favorite RINO, is back to their old standby, Mitt Romney. Little did they know by giving Mitt a couple of paragraphs he could call his own, they were allowing the man to declare his seriousness as a political candidate a thing of the past:

If I Were President: Obamacare, One Year In

By Mitt Romney

If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. The executive order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them.

As I have stated time and again, a one-size-fits-all national plan that raises taxes is simply not the answer. Under our federalist system, the states are "laboratories of democracy." They should be free to experiment. By the way, what works in one state may not be the answer for another. Of course, the ultimate goal is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs. But since an outright repeal would take time, an executive order is the first step in returning power to the states.

I'll admit. I had to read this several times because I'm reading it and thinking how can one single person pack so much fail in so little space. I mean seriously. This is not the sort of plan one would expect from a supposed "educated man." It's damned sure not a plan one would expect from someone who believes in the Constitution.

First, let's look at Romney's plan to just give all of the state wavers, by Executive fiat. For one thing, Executive orders aren't worth the paper they are written on, as any law Congress makes would supersede them. This is simply no way to govern.

While Romney is gleefully issuing wavers by Executive Order, ObamaCare is still the law of the land, assuming the United States Supreme Court hasn't stricken the bill down as unconstitutional before January 20, 2013.

And here-in lies the problem. As long as ObamaCare is still law, parts of it are being implemented. Romney could give a waver to every man, woman, child, dog and cat in the country, and ObamaCare, the law, will just keep on keepin' on, until it is either repealed or declared unconstitutional and void. Billions of dollars will be spent while Romney plays "executive."

There is only one way to make sure ObamaCare doesn't destroy the best health care system in the world, and drag down our already ailing economy with it: Kill it. Put it out of our misery!

As we move on, Romney is still using this tired old talking point:

Under our federalist system, the states are "laboratories of democracy."

Now this is true enough, but it doesn't mean states should embrace destructive ideas and socialist plans. At least not if they expect to succeed! And by every measure humanly possible, RomneyCare is a complete and total disaster. It's bankrupting the state and has screwed up their health care system beyond salvation.

Romney goes on to say that repealing ObamaCare is the "ultimate goal" and he wants to "replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs." That's all well and good, but if that's Romney's REAL position, why didn't he do that as Governor of Massachusetts, instead of instituting a socialist form of health care, one that would serve as the blueprint for ObamaCare!

One is left wondering if Romney even understands the meaning of the words he wrote.

Mitt could have looked to the Lone Star State. Texas took on health care reform well before Romney was elected Governor. Instead of cooking up a European style socialized system, Texas made reforms to the insurance industry, and more importantly, addressed tort reform. Texas used to be a haven for ambulance chasing lawyers. The worst in the nation. With lawsuit reform, the Texas health care system has thrived, with thousands of doctors relocating to the state.

Of course, our beloved Governor, Rick Perry, isn't one of those Ivy League educated "though leaders" so prized by the Republican elite. He's just a good old boy who went to Texas A&M, served as a Captain in the Air Force, flying C-130s overseas, and went back to cotton farming after serving his country. In other words, the man uses Common Sense to solve problems, not Big Government schemes.

Romney could have looked to Texas, rather than socialist Europe for solutions, but how would that have looked to the rest of the country club set?

Another problem with Romney is one of believability. Let's face it, Romney is well known as a human windsock. The absolute, ultimate, finger-in-the-wind politician. You name the issue, and Romney will have taken both sides at one point or another.

Now one could simply say he's grown and matured, learned. That would be valid in several cases, but on many issues Romney famously flip-flops from one side to the other, depending on the prevailing political winds.

So here's the thing, even though Romney is saying anything he has to in order to seem "electable", will he really stay true to his word? Why should we believe he'll even attempt to stop ObamaCare, let alone actually do it?

Long before ObamaCare was ever signed into law, the America people were rising up by the millions in protest. Leaders, like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Allen West, and many more, stood up and fought against this disaster with everything they had. They laid it all on the line. Took all sorts of heat from the media, and even the hacks in their own party. But they fought anyway.

In the end, it was Palin, Bachmann, and the rest, who inspired the hard working patriots in the Tea Party, resulting in the largest shift in political power in over 100 years, with the 2010 elections. Republicans didn't just win big in the national contests, the state elections saw massive Republican victories as well over 600 democrats were sent packing!

Where was Romney though? We are constantly told by the Ruling Class of the GOP that Romney is the bestest they have to offer. The leader of their pack. Indeed, Romney has name recognition and even a bit of credibility, among some. Romney's voice would have been not only welcomed, but much appreciated. Romney's strong voice in opposition to ObamaCare might have been the one that made the difference. He could have stood strong with Palin, Bachmann and the others, but that's not the way Romney does things.

Had Mitt Romney stood up with the rest of America as we fought to stop ObamaCare from ever becoming law, he might have even been celebrated as a leader. Instead, Mitt decided to sit it out. Obviously Romney has his own demons to deal with, having screwed up his own state, but still, he could have stood up and took his lumps, then helped stop the Obama regime. Alas, Romney is not a leader, and doesn't have the backbone for the real fight.

So again, how is it he will have the backbone as President?

Here's another problem with Romney's credibility. Far from admitting he jumped the shark with RomneyCare, Mitt has been bending over backwards to defend his mess ever since the nation learned what a total disaster it is!

There are thousands of instances like the one Sasha Issenberg describes for the Boston Globe, almost a year ago, to the day:

Romney defends Mass. health care law

AMES, Iowa — Mitt Romney offered an enthusiastic defense last night of the comprehensive health care law he helped create four years ago in Massachusetts ...

"Overall, ours is a model that works,’’ Romney said in response to a question after a speech at Iowa State University. "We solved our problem at the state level. Like it or not, it was a state solution. Why is it that President Obama is stepping in and saying ‘one size fits all’ ’’?

[ .... ]

Yesterday, Romney proudly acknowledged that his bill included a set of new insurance regulations that "President Obama always likes to talk about in his health care plan — the good stuff.’’ Romney trumpeted the achievement of near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, while declining to acknowledge that the mechanism he used to achieve that goal — a requirement that individuals buy private insurance — is the same as the much-criticized mandate of Obama’s plan.

The accounting of "some similarities’’ and "some differences’’ between the two systems was a more delicate comparison than Romney has offered recently, when he wholly rejected the idea that the two had anything significant in common.

"People often compare his plan to the Massachusetts plan,’’ Romney said in an interview last month. "They’re as different as night and day. There are some words that sound the same, but our plan is based on states solving our issues; his is based on a one-size-fits-all plan.’’

In the last week, many health care policy specialists, Democrats celebrating the bill’s passage, and Republicans condemning it have come to another conclusion. The difference between the two systems, they say, is slim.

"Basically, it’s the same thing,’’ said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney and Obama administrations on their health insurance programs. A national health overhaul would not have happened if Mitt Romney had not made "the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform.’’

I'd like to hear Mitt describe, in detail exactly how "Overall, ours is a model that works.’’ That would be a performance worthy of an Academy Award, if he could pull it off.

Mitt was still out there taking victory laps for RomneyCare just one month ago:

Mitt Romney is ‘proud’ of Massachusetts health care plan

"Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered," Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom told the Globe's Matt Viser. "What's important now is to return to the states the power to determine their own healthcare solutions by repealing Obamacare. A one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn't work."

It's unclear how that talking point will play with GOP primary voters, who may find it tough to distinguish Romney's plan from President Obama's health care proposal given both included individual mandates for coverage. In an attempt to perhaps undermine a rival, the White House has gone out of its way to link Obama's plan to what Romney passed. "We got some good ideas from him," Obama adviser David Axelrod said last month.

The question of whether Romney can distance his plan from Obama's seems potentially crucial to his campaign. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday found that 84 percent of Republicans polled have an unfavorable view of "Obamacare."

Will someone please explain to me, with a straight face, exactly how Romney has any credibility on this at all.

There's still more troubling issues with Romney. His publisher recently released his book in paperback. This isn't unusual. What is unusual is the revisions Mitt made. Now it's not uncommon for an author to add more content when a book comes out in paperback. Something to add to the story. However, it's most curious that Romney took the occasion to actually edit the content and change positions on key issues, including RommneyCare. That's right, not only does Romney flip flop in person, he flip flops in print as well!

Romney edits Romneycare out of his book

Multiple Choice Mitt strikes again. Romney is putting out a paperback version of his book, No Apology, but has edited out references to the individual mandate contained in health care legislation he brought into law in Massachusetts.

In the original hardcover, Romney tried to carefully distinguish between the Massachusetts law and the national version that was nearing passage as he wrote.

But the Massachusetts model has become Romney's bête noire among conservatives, who loathe the national reform they call "Obamacare." The rewritten paperback swings much harder, proclaiming that "Obamacare will not work and should be repealed," and "Obamacare is an unconstitutional federal incursion into the rights of states."

Read more here.

Sorry, but Romney trying to play the tough guy, on ObamaCare, or anything else, just isn't an image that's believable.

Something else that is destroying Romney's credibility: Obama thinks of Mitt as a "useful idiot" when he talks about his health care plan. Recently Obama cited Romney's stance on RomneyCare to claim his own "bi-partisanship" and announce a change of course on how he'd like to see ObamaCare shoved down our throats. I mean "implemented" [sorry]

The Obama regime constantly "thanks" Romney for giving them the blueprint for their own program.

In effect, this neutralizes any attack on ObamaCare Romney can make. There are only two people in the United States with a socialist health care system named after them. In a political contest it will be hard for one to attack the other, especially when the challenger, Romney, was the first one to create such a system!

In other words, with Romney as the nominee, it takes ObamaCare off the table as a campaign issue.

President Obama praises Mitt Romney’s health care plan

"I know that many of you have asked for flexibility for your states under this law. In fact, I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he's proud of what he accomplished on health care in Massachusetts and supports giving states the power to determine their own health care solutions," Obama said in an address to the National Governors Association today. "He's right. Alabama is not going to have exactly the same needs as Massachusetts or California or North Dakota. We believe in that flexibility."

It's the second time in the past several weeks that the White House has gone out of its way to praise Romney, who is expected to launch a bid for the GOP nomination. In January, Obama adviser David Axelrod said the administration had gotten "some good ideas" from Romney, who has come under fire for the plan, which, like Obama's bill, mandates that individuals must have health insurance.

It's Romney's weak position that allows Obama to single him out, and use him as a shield. It allows Obama his "reach across the aisle" moment.

People in Massachusetts are still very upset with Romney, and articles like this recent piece from Howie Carr in the Boston Herald are all too common, and will be repeated often in 2012:

No Rx for Mitt Romney’s Bay State headache

Mitt keeps trying to explain how it seemed like such a good idea at the time. But Romneycare follows him around like a dark cloud over his head, just the way Chappaquiddick haunted Ted Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign. If only those rascally Democrats hadn’t ruined it, Mitt keeps saying, as the crowd uneasily makes its way toward the exits.

No, Mitt says, really, I mean it, seriously, please, come back . . .

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it, "The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

Romney has had years to do some sort of mea culpa, to come clean, admit he screwed the pooch, and ask for forgiveness. A sincere apology, several years ago, might have helped, instead, Romney has been doubling down. Romney has even called his boondoggle "the ultimate conservative plan" and has encouraged other Governors to adopt it as their own!

I'll give Mitt this, he and his team sure know how to spin disaster!

Now I think we all agree that allowing the several states to be in charge of creating their own destiny, and health care reform, is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended for our Republic. In the Federalist system, each state is a sovereign entity, and the intent is to allow each state to create conditions that work for their citizens.

Romney is right in this case, but the conditions he created as Governor are far from "conservative"! Seriously, the individual mandate, forcing every citizen to buy insurance, is not Conservative in any way, shape, or form.

Now some will bring up mandatory automobile insurance as a counter to that argument, but that dog won't hunt. Driving a car is NOT a right, it's a privilege.

One can choose not to drive a car, and thus not be mandated to buy insurance. The act of driving a car is voluntary, and the required insurance is designed to protect other drivers and property owners, not the insured. [unless they purchase "full coverage", which is not mandatory]

On the other hand, RomneyCare, like ObamaCare requires every citizen to purchase insurance, simply because they are alive, and penalizes anyone who doesn't.

This is NOT a Conservative way of doing things. Conservatives respect individual rights, and the concept of limited government. RomneyCare, like it's spawn, ObamaCare are the exact opposite of these concepts. They are the ultimate Big Government intrusions on our lives.

The elections of 2012 are going to be the defining moment in American history. It's going to be the event that determines whether we stay on our current path, and become nothing more than a failed socialist experiment, or change directions and get back to First Principles, those time honored solutions to problems that made this nation the greatest ever created.

One of the real chances the United States has to right itself lies not in the presidency, but in Congress. There are a lot of democrats up for re-election in the Senate. There is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fill those seats with principled Conservatives. A strong leader on the Republican ticket for President will have long coattails and bring about this change in Congress.

I mention this because it brings us to the answer Mitt Romney should have given, instead of the one he did in the NRO editorial.

You see, the new Congress will be sworn in weeks before the new President. This means Congress will have plenty of time to draft, and pass legislation repealing ObamaCare in it's entirety. This legislation can be sitting on the new President's desk, ready for their signature on day one.

Romney should understand, that after watching many of their fellow travelers go down in the elections, many of the remaining democrats will be all too happy to vote in favor of repeal, especially those up for re-election in 2014.

All of this will be possible with a strong leader at the top of the ticket. It's telling that Romney can't envision this. Mitt's answer shows he is not a a leader, nor is he a serious candidate for the office of the presidency.

RomneyCare was always going to be Mitt's Waterloo, the bridge too far, this just seals his fate.

Bad News For Mitt: RomneyCare Still Sucks [and] Mitt's Still In Denial

He now says that he opposes any national plan, calling for states to experiment with different approaches as the “laboratories of democracy.”

That would certainly be an improvement over Obamacare.

On the other hand, he has repeatedly said that he sees the Massachusetts plan as a model for the nation and has urged other states to copy his approach.

~ Michael Tanner on Mitt Romney

Let's face it, Mitt Romney has a very difficult path ahead should he run for the White House. First you have his less than stellar record as Governor. Here's a guy who ran on job creation and his state was 50th out of 50 in his first year. Only Hurricane Katrina, which shut down a lot of business in Louisiana, helped the Bay State get out of dead last. His  much celebrated skill as a "financial whiz" proved to be smoke and mirrors as well.

However, as poor of a performance as Romney turned in as a one term Governor, it pales in light of his biggest problem. Mitt Romney is the first of exactly two Americans to have a socialist health care system named after them, with Barack Obama being the other. In fact, the absolute fiasco Romney created in Massachusetts with RomneyCare, was the blue print for ObamaCare.

This boondoggle is bankrupting the state, has caused health care costs to sky rocket, as well as insurance premiums, and is absolutely killing business all across the state.

What's sad though is Romney has yet to admit this was a disaster. Instead he defends this deal, and recommends other stays use it as a model for "reforming" their health care," which frankly is mind blowing!

As Michael Tanner writing for National Review Online states: “There is no easy cure for what ails Mitt Romney’s presidential ambitions. “

…. he will also have one enormous albatross hanging around his neck: the Massachusetts health-care program.

One of the clearest lessons of the 2010 elections was that voters remain strongly opposed to President Obama’s health-care reform. And if voters in general dislike Obamacare, Republican voters positively loathe it. According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, voters overall support repealing Obamacare by a margin of 58–37. Among Republicans, 84 percent favor repeal.

Romney’s problem is that, despite his demurrals, the parallels between Obamacare and his 2006 Massachusetts reform plan are striking. Both plans are built around an individual mandate requiring citizens to purchase a government-designed insurance plan. Both plans dramatically increase government subsidies and Medicaid eligibility. Both plans use an exchange to redesign the individual and small-group insurance markets, creating a “managed competition” model for insurance. And both Massachusetts and Obamacare prohibit insurers from managing risk, shifting costs from older and sicker individuals to the young and healthy. Neither Obamacare nor Romneycare includes any substantial cost-containment mechanism.

Romneycare has proven to be a disaster in Massachusetts, providing a clear vision of the future under Obamacare. The number of uninsured has been reduced — at great cost — but the program has failed to achieve the promise of universal coverage. The subsidies and other costs have proven an enormous burden for the state budget. Insurance premiums have continued to rise, leading Massachusetts to attempt to impose premium caps and even a global budget. Insurers are losing money and threatening to pull out of the state.

It isn’t very hard to imagine his primary opponents preparing their 30-second attack ads.

Already, Tea Party activists are raising alarms. Romneycare is “something he’s going to have to explain,” warns Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party, “and it might just be a disaster for him.” Plymouth Rock Tea Party founder Lisa Martin says her distaste for Romneycare has forced her to consider other potential candidates, such as Sarah Palin. And presaging national discontent, Tea Party Express president Amy Kremer told the Christian Broadcasting Network that Romney’s Massachusetts health-care reform will “absolutely not pass muster with members.”

Romney has taken to making three arguments in his defense. First, he criticizes Obamacare for its $669 billion in tax increases, claiming that the Massachusetts plan did not increase taxes. That is technically true — if you consider only the legislation as Romney signed it. However, it is also true that the legislation relied heavily on federal subsidies — more than $300 million — and was still underfunded. Romney’s successor was forced both to cut back on some benefits that the plan originally offered and to raise the state’s cigarette tax by $1 per pack ($154 million annually) to help pay for the program. The state also imposed approximately $89 million in fees and assessments on health-care providers and insurers.

Second, Romney correctly points out that he used his line-item veto to challenge several objectionable provisions of the bill, including its employer mandate, but had his vetoes overridden by the Democratic-controlled legislature. To some degree those vetoes were an exercise in political theater, since the override was always a given. In the end, Romney signed the bill itself, even knowing that the objectionable provisions would be put back in. And he continues to support some of the plan’s worst aspects, notably the individual mandate.

Finally, Romney criticizes Obamacare as a “one size fits all” federal plan, whereas his plan was implemented in only one state. That’s true. Governor Romney only messed up the health-care system in Massachusetts, while President Obama has messed up health care for the entire country. Of course, as governor, Romney didn’t have the power to impose his model outside of his state. He now says that he opposes any national plan, calling for states to experiment with different approaches as the “laboratories of democracy.” That would certainly be an improvement over Obamacare. On the other hand, he has repeatedly said that he sees the Massachusetts plan as a model for the nation and has urged other states to copy his approach.

Other than the defenses above, Romney has so far been surprisingly stubborn, refusing to back down from his backing of the Massachusetts plan, calling it “a conservative plan.” In March, he told Fox News, “I think our plan is working well. And perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that it is saving lives. It is the ultimate pro-life effort, if you will, because people who otherwise could have lost their lives are now able to get the kind of care that they deserve.”

As a candidate who has been accused in the past of switching positions in order to curry political favor, Romney may have no choice but to stick with this one. But it is not going to make his road to the White House any easier.

Everyone makes mistakes. The only people who don't make mistakes are the ones who never try to achieve anything. With that said, intelligent people generally learn from their mistakes and go out of their way to never repeat them again.

Not Mitt Romney.

RomneyCare is the very definition of failure. Failure of biblical proportions, and yet, Romney sees his failed policies as a model for other states to follow, and actually encourages other states to follow Massachusetts into the abyss.He honestly thinks this absolute failure is a complete success.

That's some pretty irrational thought going on there. Too irrational to be considered for the most powerful job in the world, too irrational to be Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military on earth.

As we say in business, it may be time for Mitt Romney to “explore other opportunities.”

It’s Official RomneyCare Is An Unmitigated Disaster

As most know, the current unconstitutional mess all Americans are about to face, known as ObamaCare, got it’s inspiration from the disastrous health care plan promoted and signed into law by then Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney. Indeed, RomneyCare was the blue print for the onerous legislation.

By any and every measure RomneyCare has been an epic failure. Not only has RomneyCare failed to meet one single goal intended, it has only increased and amplified every problem, and has the Bay State on the verge of insolvency

RomneyCare has caused healthcare costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to skyrocket, and is pushing insurance providers toward bankruptcy.

From CNN/Money:

FORTUNE -- The best guide to how President Obama's historic health-care legislation will reshape the nation's medical marketplace and fiscal future is the pioneering model in Massachusetts. The Bay State's reform program started in late 2006, and it shares virtually all the major features of the new federal plan.

Both programs greatly expand Medicaid coverage for low-earners, and provide heavily subsidized policies for a broad swath of the middle class. They tightly restrict the range of premiums for customers of different ages and medical conditions; they bar insurers from charging older patients, or even couch potatoes who abuse their health, anywhere near their actual cost. Both plans impose a long list of expensive benefits insurers must provide whether patients want to pay for them or not, ranging in Massachusetts from in-vitro fertilization to chiropractic services.

At the same time the plans offer lavish subsidies that swell the demand for health care, they do nothing to increase the supply of medical services in a market suffering from shortages of everything from family doctors to nurses to hospital beds. Two years after enacting health-care reform to rein in costs, Massachusetts strengthened "certificate of need laws" that prevent hospitals and other providers from competing with high-cost, entrenched suppliers. The state now requires that ambulatory surgical centers and outpatient treatment facilities get permission from regulators before they can enter the market. Their rivals invariably lobby the regulators to block competition, and usually win.

Thirty-six states, from Florida to Georgia to Washington, have similar price-inflating laws on the books. The Obama bill does nothing to eliminate regulations that effectively cartelize the market.

The combination of heavily subsidized demand and tight, over-regulated supply is a textbook formula for perpetuating the big, chronic price increases that bedevil today's health-care system.

Instead of attacking the real causes of the explosion in costs -- the combination of overly generous state aid and a dearth of competition among hospitals and physician groups -- Massachusetts is vilifying prestigious, non-profit insurers, and punishing them, believe it nor not, with price controls. In April, Governor Deval Patrick refused the request of carriers such as Harvard Pilgrim, the top-rated plan in the country, for premium increases of 8% to 32%. Instead, his administration is refusing all rate hikes over 7.7%; any rate requests the administration rejects are automatically held at 2009 levels.

In explosive emails released last week, Robert Dynan, chief of the financial analysis unit at the Division of Insurance, told Commissioner Joseph Murphy that the price caps would cause a "potential train wreck" and threatened "catastrophic consequences for the non-profit industry." Dynan warned that the non-profits, unlike national giants such as WellPoint, operate on such slim margins that the controls could drive them into bankruptcy. Even now, four of the biggest insurers are threatening to stop taking new patients at rates so low they lose money on each new enrollee.

The battle in Massachusetts may foreshadow the results of the new federal law. It threatens to mirror precisely the cycle we're witnessing in the Bay State: spiraling costs that make coverage unaffordable for both patients and businesses, followed by price controls that drive private providers from the market. "This could repeat itself on the national level, and become the beginning of government-run health care," says Lora Pellegrini, chief of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.

That disaster scenario may sound far-fetched. But an examination of the Massachusetts plan yields five important lessons that show the dangers ahead for the Obama health-care blueprint.

Lesson 1: The Massachusetts plan does not control costs.

When Massachusetts launched its reform program in 2006, it already had the highest medical costs in the nation. Today, the burden is still rising far faster than wages or inflation, from those already lofty levels. A report from that state attorney general in March -- remember, this is a Democratic administration -- asked rhetorically "Can we expect the existing health-care market in Massachusetts to successfully contain health-care costs?" The report concluded, "To date, the answer is an unequivocal 'no.'"

Costs are rising relentlessly for both families and for the state government. The median annual premium for family plans jumped 10% from 2007 to 2009 to $14,300 -- again, that's a substantial rise on top of an already enormous number. For small businesses, the increase was 12%. In 2006, the state spent around $1 billion on Medicaid, subsidies for medium-to-lower earners, and other health-care programs. Today, the figure is $1.75 billion. The federal government absorbed half of the increase.

Hence reform's proponents boast that expenses have risen only $354 million or around 6% a year. But the real increase is double that, including the federal share. And it's highly possible that given the current budget pressures, the U.S. will reduce the contribution that has encouraged the state to spend so lavishly.

Lesson 2: Community rating, guaranteed issue and mandated benefits swell costs.

How did costs in Massachusetts get so big to begin with? A major reason is the adoption of guaranteed issue and community rating in the mid-1990s. The new federal bill would expand those rules to the entire nation. Under guaranteed issue, insurers must accept all enrollees regardless of their medical condition; under community rating, they must charge all customers similar premiums, even if their costs are far different. The result is that prices rise steeply for young, healthy customers, who must pay far more than their actual costs. It also give them a strong incentive to drop insurance; then they can "game the system" by signing up any time they need surgery or get diabetes.

Hence the pool of insured people gets older and sicker as the healthy drop out. That's what happened in Massachusetts, and it contributed to soaring premiums. The 2006 reform plan was supposed to solve the problem by requiring that everyone buy coverage or pay a fine of around $1,000. It worked, but only in part: Of the 600,000 uninsured in 2005, around 450,000 are now covered. But a large share of 150,000 who still lack coverage are young residents who choose to pay the fine instead of high premiums. Insurers are also getting socked by people who sign up for insurance to get expensive care mandated under state law, including hospitalization for childbirth or hip replacements, and then depart once the procedure is completed.

In the federal bill, the fines for going uninsured are even lower than in Massachusetts -- and anyone who can't find an inexpensive plan is exempted from all penalties. Hence the "adverse selection" problem could prove far worse.

Lesson 3: Huge subsidies for low-to-medium earners could prove extremely expensive.

One of the most fascinating features of the Massachusetts plan is that it introduced a system of subsidized policies, sold through an insurance "exchange" that's extremely similar to the one in the new federal plan. Under Commonwealth Care, the state subsidizes plans -- offered by private carriers -- for residents who earn up to $66,150 who are not covered by employers. The aid is extremely generous. At $44,000, families pay around $1,000 a year in premiums. At the $66,150 maximum, they contribute around $3,000.

The problem is that the actual annual cost of these plans is around $10,000, so the subsides are enormous -- that's 90% for families earning $44,000. And while the costs keep going up, the share paid by the enrollee barely budges. Says Michael Tanner, an economist at the conservative Cato Institute: "It's a situation where the entire escalation in costs is paid by the government, not the people receiving the care."

The federal plan also subsidizes care provided through state-run exchanges. The patients' contributions are bigger than in the Mass. plan: A family earning $66,000 would pay $6,300 a year. But the federal plan offers subsidies far higher along the income scale, aiding families of four making up to $88,200. And surprisingly, the federal plans would probably prove a lot more costly than the ones in Massachusetts, where the state prides itself on restraining what they pay by squeezing providers, who then shift the added costs to private customers.

The big problem arises if far more people sign up for these exchange-offered plans than anticipated. That's been the case in Massachusetts. And as we'll see in a moment, it could still get a lot worse there. A potential disaster threatens the federal plan if employers staring dropping coverage, since a flood of newcomers would rush into the state-funded pools.

Lesson 4: The exchanges reward people for working less and earning less.

Data is lacking on how damaging these perverse incentives are in practice. But it's clear in Massachusetts that low-to-medium earning families often suffer financially if they get a raise, work overtime, move to a higher paying job -- or if a spouse rejoins the workforce. For example, a family earning $33,000 pays no premium at all under Commonwealth Care. But if their pay goes to $46,000, they're obligated to contribute about $2,400. That's an effective tax rate of 18.5% on that $13,000 raise. A pay increase of $44,000 to $46,000 is mostly erased by higher premiums alone.

The federal bill is plagued by the same weakness. For example, a $55,000 earner contributes $4,400 a year towards insurance. At $65,000, the bill is $6300; so the family is paying a "tax" of $1,900 or 19% on that $10,000 raise. After payroll taxes, those Americans would face a marginal rate of around 35%, a number that's heretofore been the territory strictly for high-earners.

Lesson 5: The generous plans and added mandates give employers an incentive to drop health insurance.

In charting the future of health-care costs, the biggest danger by far is that companies will drop their coverage. It's also the one that's the most difficult to handicap, both for Massachusetts and the entire nation. The problem is simple: If employers stop paying for health care, employees will flood into the government-subsidized programs, enormously raising the cost to already fragile budgets.

Surprisingly, health reform in Massachusetts has actually increased the number of workers covered by employers. Over 100,000 more employees are covered by corporate plans today than when the program debuted in 2006. The main reason is that the plan imposed a $1,000 fine on employees who refused their employers' plans. Then, families were paying around $3,600 a year towards their company policies. Many decided that, when faced with a fine, the better choice was paying the extra $2,600 for full coverage.

The Massachusetts plan also bans any employee from getting coverage from Commonwealth Care if his or her company offers coverage. Hence it would appear that corporate coverage is solidly entrenched. But that's by no means certain, either in Massachusetts or under the Obama plan. The reason is the fast escalation in costs, for both companies and employees. From 2007 to 2009, the employee contribution for family policies rose a steep 17%, or $624 a year, to $4,200.

Employees can only move into Commonwealth Care if their employers drop their plans. The danger is that the incentives are tilting in that direction as the costs of coverage for employer, and the price of premiums to employees, keep climbing. The point is rapidly approaching where both will pocket big savings if employers drop their plans and workers buy their policies through the heavily subsidized exchanges.

In Massachusetts, the state government is pushing toward that tilt point by adding heavy mandates to a list of more than 40 already on the books. In 2009, it required insurers to cover prescription drugs. An expensive autism mandate is now being debated in the state legislature. The list of mandates under the federal plan is bound to mirror the ones in Massachusetts, and once again, the added expense severely weakens companies' incentive for providing coverage.

Cracks are already starting to appear. Part-time workers can get coverage under Commonwealth Care for a fraction of what they'd pay as full-timers. So they "game the system" by working ten or fifteen hours a week for two or three companies. Or they find that it pays to switch from full- to part-time work. PHI, an organization that represents home health-care workers, states that one-fourth of the home care agencies in Massachusetts are reducing workers' hours so they're eligible for state-subsidized care.

The federal plan will encounter the same problem -- perhaps a more acute one since its penalties are lower and its subsidies go much higher on the income scale.

Starting in 2017, the states will have the option of allowing companies that drop their plans to shift workers into the subsidized, state-run exchanges. That choice doesn't exist now in Massachusetts. It's not that employers are likely to dump their plans en masse. What's far more probable is a progressive erosion that relentlessly and systematically raises government spending.

The incentives are there, both in the federal plan, and its prototype in the Bay State. And when the incentives are that big -- and when subsidies inevitably get bigger, not smaller -- no amount of regulatory tinkering can stop America's employers and employees from taking the government's money, and saving their own.

While this entire system is a failure, at every level, reading "Lesson 5" is a study in the theory of unintended consequences of the Nanny State. If you notice, under this plan, it actually encourages people to "game" the system, and even work less, in order to get the government assistance.

This is the same folly as one finds with those who are chronically on welfare. It’s a sad existence, but the subsidies are just strong enough that it doesn’t pay to work harder and better oneself. It’s truly the ultimate form of modern day slavery.

Socialism always fails, because this is what happens. It enslaves the people caught up in it. It oppresses them. It kills the human spirit.

Mitt was pretty full of himself when he sighed RomneyCare into law, but as the wheels have began to come off the wagon, he has tried to claim that RomneyCare and ObamaCare are not much alike. When called on this, and proven wrong, he runs to the "states rights" argument, and claims that because it’s a state plan, and not a federal plan, it’s both conservative, and kosher. Now when those two arguments fail, he claims it a conservative thing, because it’s all about personal responsibility.

The truth is, Mitt Romney is the typical Big Government Nanny State politician that put this nation on the path of destruction. Forcing people to buy health insurance, strong arming employers, health care providers, and insurance providers isn’t conservative, it’s totalitarian.

Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz and Director of Health Policy Studies Michael F. Cannon discuss the politics and policy of RomneyCare and Obamacare.







This is just more proof that Mitt Romney is the kind of politician we are trying to rid ourselves of. This guy will do and say anything to further his own career, and has absolutely no core principles.

Romney is the Republican establishment’s show pony, and they will be pushing him at us pretty hard between now and 2012. I suspect you will see all sorts of puff pieces on the guy start popping up here and there. They’ll be touting Romney’s business experience, his solid management skills, and so on.

If RomneyCare isn’t enough to dispel any notion that Romney is a good businessman, manager or a conservative, this little piece from Market Watch’s Brent Arends from February of this year should do it:

Mitt Romney plays the jobs card


Looking at his record, it's a losing argument


By Brett Arends , WSJ.com and MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Is Mitt Romney for real?

Romney, who may well be President Barack Obama's opponent in 2012, he had great time last week blaming the president for the current jobs shortage.

Speaking to the CPAC right-wing conference in Washington, D.C., Romney said that the dismal employment situation, a year after Obama took office, showed the president was a "failure" who was "going downhill faster than... Lindsey Vonn."

OK, let's take him at his word. Then what does that say about Romney?

The Republican contender was the governor of Massachusetts from January 2003 to January 2007. And during that time, according to the U.S. Labor Department, the state ranked 47th in the entire country in jobs growth. Fourth from last.

The only ones that did worse? Ohio, Michigan and Louisiana. In other words, two rustbelt states and another that lost its biggest city to a hurricane.

The Massachusetts jobs growth over that period, a pitiful 0.9%, badly lagged other high-skill, high-wage, knowledge economy states like New York (2.7%), California (4.7%) and North Carolina (7.6%).

The national average: More than 5%.

This was after four years. So far Obama has been in office for just one year. How was Romney's performance by his first anniversary?

Fiftieth out of fifty.

That's right. In Romney's first year in charge, Massachusetts ranked dead last in America in jobs growth.

What makes this worse for Romney is that he actually ran on a jobs platform. Romney -- who made his fortune building Bain Capital into one of the biggest venture capital firms in the world -- promised the voters of Massachusetts that as governor he'd use his business savvy and connections to bring new jobs to the state.

"I don't have to wait in the lobby to see middle management," he pointedly said during one campaign event. It was a shot at his opponent, state politico Shannon O'Brien.

Romney went on: "There's virtually not a chief executive officer in the country that won't let me in to sit down with them in their office to pitch Massachusetts. And that is what I'll do, inside Massachusetts, outside Massachusetts, outside of our country, to encourage businesses to come grow and thrive in the most robust portion of the economy, Massachusetts."

Net result: 50th out of 50 after one year, 47th after four.

Someone tell me again why this guy is thought of as a presidential contender?

Romney may indeed do well in the private business world, but all I see from his time in the public sector is a lot of FAIL.

Death Panels Now Open For Business In Massachusetts

Remember why Sarah Palin warned America that ObamaCare, Barack Obama’s unwieldy and unconstitutional scheme to take over medical care and usurp the Constitution in the bargain, was dangerous to your health?

In August Sarah Palin wrote extensively about the incredible danger that ObamaCare would lead to what amounts to "death panels." This of course caused great controversy, with many claiming Palin was either "crazy" or talking about the "end of life" discussions that were provided for within House Resolution 3200, the prototype ObamaCare bill.

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, "Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth." Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.

- Sarah Palin

Thinking folks knew what Sarah meant though. What she was talking about was health care rationing, and outright denial of services. Over the next days and weeks Sarah backed up her assertions, as did we. Sarah even introduced the nation to Dr Death, Ezekiel Emanuel, a modern day Joseph Mengele, who is a strong proponent of health care rationing and outright denial to both really young patients, as well as older patients.

And yet, Obama and his team of charlatans went out of their way to call Sarah Palin a liar. Of course, as with most of Obama’s statements, and the statements of his team, those contained the massive lies.

Now we have news from Massachusetts the home of RomneyCare, which should be looked at as a shining example of why ObamaCare will be an epic failure. Soaring costs both to the taxpayers and patients was inevitable, and now the effects of these are coming home to roost.

"You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way,"

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess.

From the Boston Globe:

The state’s ambitious plan to shake up how providers are paid could have a hidden price for patients: Controlling Massachusetts’ soaring medical costs, many health care leaders believe, may require residents to give up their nearly unlimited freedom to go to any hospital and specialist they want.

Efforts to keep patients in a defined provider network, or direct them to lower-cost hospitals could be unpopular, especially in a state where more than 40 percent of hospital care is provided in expensive academic medical centers and where many insurance policies allow patients access to large numbers of providers.

But a growing number of hospital officials and physician leaders warn that the new payment system proposed by a state commission would not work without restrictions on where patients receive care - an issue some providers say the commission and the Patrick administration have glossed over.

The Globe goes on to say:

"You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way,’’ said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "It’s a huge issue, it’s huge.’’ Dr. James Mongan, president of Partners HealthCare, a Beth Israel Deaconess competitor, agreed that it wouldn’t "work without some restriction on choice.’’

A state commission recommended in July that insurers largely scrap the current fee-for-service system - in which insurers pay doctors, hospitals, and other providers a negotiated fee for each procedure and visit - and instead pay providers a per-patient annual fee to cover all of the patient’s medical care.

This new system of "global payments’’ would discourage overuse of expensive medical services, force providers to live within a budget, and improve coordination of care for patients, supporters argue.

Hmmm, "force providers to live within a budget." Anyone ever though that maybe it’s GOVERNMENT that should be forced to live within a budget? (And the Constitution!)

Of course this sort of thing will lead to rationing of care, and poor service to patients! This state commission is one of the "death panels" that Sarah Palin warned us about.

Health care rationing and denial of care is a way of life in every nation or health care system that has some form of "universal" health care. There’s a reason why Canadians pour over the border in large numbers every year, coming to America for quality health care. In Great Britain the citizens also travel to other countries for proper care. It’s because their own government care is horrid.

Anytime the government has tried to cut costs by price fixing, just the opposite has happened. Anyone who lived through the Nixon era of wage and price controls knows what a disaster it was. Not only were costs not contained, but shortages abounded. It’s seems none of our leaders are students of history at all.

Of course, people from Obama’s side are the ones who always think communism will work, even though it never has, if only the "right" people were in charge. A folly indeed.

America has always been the world’s last best hope for freedom and liberty, and has become the world’s last best hope for health care, as well. It’s pretty obvious that Barack Obama intends to change that, all of it, with his actions. I think he means to destroy America as it has existed for 233 years in order to implement his form of communism. His administration is filled with too many fellow travelers to think otherwise.

If ObamaCare passes, as with RomneyCare, it will turn into a complete disaster, medically. But as ObamaCare turns over unprecedented powers to the federal government, virtually voiding the United States Constitution, Obama’s scheme is far more dangerous to the nation than a state program is.

As the debate on ObamaCare intensifies, it is absolutely imperative that every American who loves their freedoms and liberties resist with everything they have. Health care, quality health care is very personal, and very basic. It is something that should remain between the patient and their doctor, the government has absolutely no role they to play in this relationship.

Obama has repeatedly told America that people can keep their current insurance and doctors if they like them. He also has repeatedly said that costs to Americans will go down. As RomneyCare in Massachusetts proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, Obama is at best a liar, or worse, so ignorant to how things work, he actually believes what he says. That’s a rather frightening thought, by the way!

I suggest everyone call their members of Congress and tell them to vote, to quote Sarah Palin: "Hell no!" on ObamaCare.

You can find their numbers at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov

To read further on ObamaCare and death panels:

Sarah Palin Slaps Down Barack Obama Hard On His Government Take Over Of Health Care

Like Shootin' Moose In A Barrel, Sarah Palin Slaps Barack Obama Down Again Over Death Panels

Sarah Palin: Troubling Questions Remain About Obama's Health Care Plan


Barack Obama's Dr. Death Cuts And Runs When Confronted About His Nazi-Like Death Panels, And Other Bedtime Stories About Czars!

Sarah Palin Spanks Obama On The Eve Of His Big Dog And Pony Show With Congress

Sarah Palin Takes Barack Obama To Task Over His Pathetic Speech And Personal Attacks On The American People