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

• Mitt Romney’s tax returns would make him lose the election to Obama
• Does Mitt Romney’s Romneycare health care plan fund abortion with taxpayer dollars?
• John Hawkins writes the most scathing anti-Romney column EVER
• Santorum and Gingrich expose Romney’s liberal record in Sunday’s NBC debate
• Mitt Romney raised taxes by $740 million while he was governor of Massachusetts
• Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: who has the pro-life record on abortion?
• RINO Mitt Romney now open to European-style VAT tax
• Is Mitt Romney a flip-flopper? What are his flip-flops?
• RINO Mitt Romney deploys another RINO John Sununu to attack Newt Gingrich
• Mitt Romney supports the anti-Christian and anti-business ENDA law
• Mitt Romney gaffe: Romney fails miserably in interview with Bret Baier
• Jon Huntsman’s anti-Romney ads are awesome
• Mitt Romney’s political views on gay marriage, abortion and global warming
• Mitt Romney flip-flop videos: flat tax, abortion, health care, public sector unions, global warming
• Mitt Romney on global warming, climate change, environmental regulations
• Mitt Romney on abortion and stem cell research in his own words
• White House used Mitt Romney’s Romneycare as a blueprint for Obamacare
• Mitt Romney on the issues: Mitt Romney political views and positions in 2012

Rick Santorum

• Rick Santorum gets endorsements from James Dobson and John Stemberger
• Wall Street Journal: Rick Santorum is a supply-sider for the working man
• Rick Santorum would not stand idle while Iran develops nuclear weapons
• 150 evangelical leaders agree to endorse Rick Santorum after two-day conference
• Why Christians and social conservatives should vote for Rick Santorum
• Rick Santorum’s pro-family economic plan TRIPLES the child tax deduction
• Is Rick Santorum conservative or liberal? What are Rick Santorum’s political views?
• Rick Santorum helps liberal college students to understand the logic of marriage
• George Will: Rick Santorum connects with the working class
• Video and transcript of Rick Santorum’s inspiring Iowa victory speech
• Rick Santorum for President of the United States
• Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: who has the pro-life record on abortion?
• Rick Santorum wins Fox News Republican primary debate (with video)
• Rick Santorum explains why socialism is hostile to the family

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.