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Rick Santorum destroys Mitt Romney on RomneyCare in CNN debate

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Is Rick Santorum right to criticize Romneycare as being essential a state-level version of Obamacare?

Reason magazine explains the similarities between Obamacare and Romneycare.

Excerpt:

ObamaCare, which includes a health insurance mandate, is a near carbon copy of RomneyCare: a hefty Medicaid expansion coupled to equally large middle-class insurance subsidies, new regulations that all but turn health insurance into a public utility, and an individual mandate to buy a private insurance plan. Indeed, the same Obama administration that Romney accused of being fundamentally anti-American has on multiple occasions explicitly cited the plan that Romney signed into law as the direct model for their plan.

Romney’s only real contrast between his plan and the president’s plan boiled down to a single, simple distinction: Obama’s overhaul was a federal overhaul; Romney’s was state-based. Romney would have us believe that the same system of mandates and regulations that constitutes an unconscionable imposition on individual liberty at the federal level is somehow a natural and great part of the American way of life at the state level.

Is Rick Santorum right about the number of “free riders” who choose to pay a fine and get free health care? Of course.

As The Wall Street Journal pointed out this morning:

Uncompensated hospital care [in Massachusetts] rose 5% from 2008 to 2009, and 15% from 2009 to 2010, hitting $475 million (though the state only paid out $405 million). “Avoidable” use of emergency rooms—that is, for routine care like a sore throat—increased 9% between 2004 and 2008.

Romney also decried ObamaCare for failing to lower health costs. He’s right. But the overbudget RomneyCare doesn’t either: Indeed, its designers have explicitly admitted that the state’s plan was to increase coverage first and hope to figure out how to control spending sometime later.

National Review cites a Boston Herald article to explain what RomneyCare did to Massachusetts:

For Mitt Romney, who’s been campaigning on his ability to create jobs, this study from the conservative Beacon Hill Institute can’t be welcome. From the Boston Herald:

The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare:

  •  cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;
  •  drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;
  •  slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and
  •  reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

Here’s another must-see clip from my friend Tim:

And another one I found for Jeremy:

Here’s the full transcript of the debate.

Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum

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Mitt Romney’s tax returns would make him lose the election to Obama

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Wall Street Banks contributions to Mitt Romney
Wall Street banks make huge contributions to Mitt Romney

From The Hill. (H/T Riehl Worldview)

Excerpt:

It’s important not to overstate the perils Romney faces. He is still by far the best-funded candidate in the race. He has a state-by-state infrastructure that is the envy of his rivals. Even if he were to lose Saturday’s South Carolina primary, he would  likely remain the overall favorite to clinch the nomination.

But the procession of errors has been striking nonetheless — and it has raised concerns among many in the GOP about his vulnerabilities in a general election contest with President Obama.

Most of Romney’s awkwardness has revolved around questions about his wealth. During a heated exchange during a debate last month, he ill-advisedly offered to bet Perry $10,000 that his own account of what he had written in one of his books was correct. Perry declined, saying he was “not in the betting business,” but the episode heightened perceptions that Romney is out of touch with most Americans.

The same pattern keeps cropping up. Earlier this week, he was asked about the effective tax rate he pays on his income, and managed to injure himself twice in the space of a few sentences. First, he acknowledged that his tax rate was “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” He then added: “I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

The first claim was almost certainly true. Romney’s income is believed to come chiefly from long-term investments rather than earned income, and that would indeed make him liable for capital gains tax levied at a 15 percent rate. But it still places the multimillionaire in a more lightly taxed band than many voters — something which Newt Gingrich tried to take advantage of with his mocking proposal to introduce a “Mitt Romney 15 percent flat tax.”

Perhaps even worse was Romney’s “not very much” comment. His latest financial disclosure form, which covered the period from February 2010 to February 2011, revealed that he earned $374,327 for speeches. The sum is approximately seven times the median household income in the United States.

Those remarks had been preceded by a televised debate at which he gave a muddled response about whether he would release his tax returns.

Romney flubbed the tax-return question for a second time at a debate last Thursday, eliciting boos from the crowd when he said he would “maybe” follow the example of his late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when running for the presidency in 1968.

Romney’s mangled syntax on these occasions seems symptomatic of a wider personal unease in discussing his finances. GOP consultants say he needs to get over that discomfort if he is to prove an effective candidate.

Another concern that I have is that Mitt Romney has $20-100 million dollars in his retirement account.

Excerpt:

Like many Americans, Mitt Romney has an individual retirement account. Unlike most Americans, Mr. Romney has between $20.7 million and $101.6 million in it, a big chunk of his fortune.

Experts on estate planning said it is highly unusual to accumulate such a considerable sum in an IRA, an investment vehicle restricted by annual contribution limits. It appears that Mr. Romney’s grew so large mostly because it holds investments in Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he helped start.

[…]Mr. Romney is one of the richest presidential candidates in decades, and his GOP opponents increasingly are trying to turn wealth into a liability. President Barack Obama is expected to do the same if the former Massachusetts governor wraps up the nomination. Mr. Romney’s tax liability has emerged as a debating point in the GOP nominating contest, a proxy for a bigger argument over who should shoulder the nation’s tax burden.

In recent days, Mr. Romney’s rivals have pressed him to release his tax returns. They have attacked him for his role at Bain Capital, the source of his wealth. When Mr. Romney revealed Tuesday that his effective federal income-tax rate had been about 15% in recent years, both the White House and GOP candidates used the number as a cudgel.

[…]Michael Whitty, a lawyer at Vedder Price in Chicago who advises private-equity executives, said it is impossible to determine from Mr. Romney’s public disclosures how the IRA grew so large. Based on its listed holdings, which include many Bain Capital vehicles, Mr. Whitty theorizes Mr. Romney may have invested in Bain funds through a 401(k)-type plan, or directed some of his Bain holdings into such a plan, which he then rolled into an IRA.

How is he going to explain that? This might be one of the reasons why Romney is not releasing his tax returns. He needs to be pounded on this by Gingrich and Santorum until he drops out – we can’t afford to choose a nominee who has no hope of beating Barack Obama.

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Does Mitt Romney’s Romneycare health care plan fund abortion with taxpayer dollars?

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Fred Thompson made the point about Romneycare and abortion during the 2008 campaign, and Politifact agreed with Fred’s charge against Romney.

Excerpt:

Fred Thompson’s campaign is trying to take the much-touted health insurance program that Mitt Romney helped create as governor of Massachusetts and turn it into a liability with conservative Republican voters who dominate the party’s primary elections.

The Thompson campaign, which has been playing up the former U.S. senator’s antiabortion stances, sent out this e-mail in November 2007:

“So what sort of services does Romney’s health care plan provide? Per the state Web site: $50 co-pay for abortions.

“While court mandate requires Massachusetts to cover ‘medically necessary’ abortions in state-subsidized health plans, Mitt Romney’s plan covers ALL abortions — no restrictions.”

And it’s true.

One of the crowning moments of Mitt Romney’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts was the creation of Commonwealth Care, a state-run, state-subsidized health insurance program for people making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Although private insurers provide the coverage, the state helps pay the bills and determines what services must be covered.

That list includes abortion. And the co-pay is indeed $50.

Romney has recently sought to distance himself from some details of the plan, but he has touted it in debates and interviews as a model for the nation.

“I love it. It’s a fabulous program,” Romney said during a May 3, 2007, Republican debate in Simi Valley, Calif. “Now I know there’s some people who wonder about it. Sen. Kennedy at the signing of the bill, we were all there together, he said, ‘You know, if you’ve got Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy agreeing to the same bill, that means one thing — one of us didn’t read it.’

[…]Although Romney shares responsiblity with the state legislature and the program’s board, Commonwealth Care was his pet project, and he takes credit for it. We find Thompson’s claims true.

Those are the facts. Romney may say he is pro-life, but he doesn’t have the record of pro-life activism of Rick Santorum, or even the good pro-life voting record of Newt Gingrich.

Many more details of Romneycare and abortion here.

Watch Mitt Romney explain his views on abortion and stem cell research in his own words.