President Willard M. Romney
 

I hope you never need health care with a preexiting condition after President Romney abolishes Obamacare, or never have an adult child you want to keep on your insurance policy.

I hope we never have the economy killing National Health Insurance (ObamaCare) that we cannot pay for and small business can't abide, in addition to all the other government entitlements that we cannot continue to pay for in their current forms.

People have to take care of themselves. There's always charity in a pinch and emergency rooms that cannot turn you away. People got to stop looking to government to cure all ills. What ever happened to self determination?

if you understood Romney's motivation you might think better of him. As a liberal however you probably could not bring yourself to say anything good about Romney.

His motivation of the Massachusetts health care system was to decrease the number of uninsured citizens in the Commonwealth. In that he was successful. It was not his intent to provide universal healthcare for everyone in the state.

Shortly after the passage of the law a Democrat controlled legislature started demanding certain coverages such as there is a prisoner in the Massachusetts jails that requested and received a sex change operation. Under the Massachusetts system senior citizens are covered for pregnancy. There were many other things that the legislature included in the coverage that drove the prices up. Romney did try to veto them however they primarily Democrat legislature is because were overridden.

You may hold the so-called Romney care against Mr. Romney simply because you can't find anything else of substance to hold against him.

you brought up a sore spot with me. Please define what you think the limits of insuring pre-existing conditions should be.

Is that okay that someone does not carry health insurance until they get sick?

Not as true as you'd like it to be. Many private hospitals CAN turn you away (which is disastrous if that's the only place around) and, on top of that, some hospitals will do the absolute minimum to 'treat' someone - like give a dose of painkillers and send them on their way (there was a scandal like this in Massachusetts some years back with hospitals trying to skirt the laws - it was a process called "dumping" - the hospital that I worked at, Boston's Beth Israel, was on the receiving end of 'dumped' patients).

And charity? It doesn't cover chemo very often. I think one of the problems with today's health care debate is that we still have our 1950s-era pre-conceived notions about self-reliance. Back then, you DIED of cancer and that was about it. Now, you're in for at least 6 figures of treatment and our mindsets haven't really changed from the "Doctor is God" mode of thinking.

Even something as simple as a garden-variety childbirth has gone stratosperic. You read old articles of a hospital childbirth costing $20 in the 1920s or 30s. When my kids were born, the *minimum* charges were $5000 in 1987 and I have no idea HOW much was spent on my younger daughter in 1992 because of what happened hours after she was born (there were ambulances, a trip to Boston and neo-natal ICUs involved). I know that it cost over 6 figures.

That younger daughter is now 19 and I can't IMAGINE what it would cost for her to have to pay for a pregnancy.

And I know I sound like a broken record (you young'uns can Google the term) but NOTHING proposed by ANYONE seems to be addressing WHY we pay more than any other country on the planet.

I'm glad you didn't say that you have medicare. No card carrying member of the tea party would ever be associated with that socialized medicine program.

Since Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, why not refer to it as "JohnsonCare"?

No card-carrying tea partier would ever take money from Social Security either. Pure socialism and the tea party is against that 100%. Why, it would be hypocritical to accept money from that source.

My thoughts exactly.

Social Security took my money without my permission for 45 years and promised to give it back to me in the form of "insurance" payments when I'm of the appropriate "advanced" age. Now I should say "keep my money". Really?

Again Medicare will be forced on me when I'm of that "advanced" age. My personal insurance collapses at the designated "advanced" age and automatically they throw me into the bowels of Medicare.

So, Medicare is your rational to take every person in the U.S.; man, woman child and illegal, and establish a gazillion dollar entitlement for all that we cannot pay for and will devastate our economy?

Spare the nation from your good intentions.

Social security has been the law of the land for over 70 years, so you knew the rules when you started working. Nobody took your money without your permission. You had to sign a form.

Not to worry, President Gingrich promises to privatize social security as soon as he takes office. (That worked out so well for President George W Bush.) That will be right after he abolishes child labor laws.

Let me get this straight, Medicare is good for you but not for the general public?

What!!??; You make it sound like I had to opt into it. Daft.

Katz a liberal...:a20: She is going to get ya for calling her that!!!

Seriously though...thanks for the info on Mitt's rationale for his statewide health care plan. Seems reasonable to me, at least what his original intention was.

Good intentions. What's that old saying? ........."The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Oldies but goodies.

Always blows my mind when I hear of the naysayers of Social Security say they put more into it than they will ever withdraw.

I believe I read the average Social Security payment is $1400 per month. Multiply that by 12 and you get $16,800 per year. Assume you start getting that at age 62 and collect for 25 years, you will have pulled out $420,000 without counting COLAs.

In your 40 years of work, can you say that the 7.5% you put in Social Security equalled $420,000? In 2011, the maximum salary subject to Social Security was $106,000.

That's well and good but the average life expectancy in the United States is 77.6 years so you can knock 10 years off your example.