It’s becoming clear that Rick Perry has never met a buzzword he doesn’t like. We’ve heard that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and that Medicare isn’t working. Now he has added the words “socialized medicine” to his stump speech vocabulary, in reference to the Massachusetts health reform law, which is all about the state’s residents buying insurance from private insurance companies through a shopping service called The Connector. While the state operates the exchange, it sells nothing and underwrites no insurance. And it certainly doesn’t run the hospitals or doctors’ offices, leaving them to charge pretty much what they want to. That’s hardly socialized medicine. Yet that didn’t stop Candidate Perry from trotting out the bogeyman once again. Speaking at the Iowa Credit Union League Friday, he told his audience:
The model for socialized medicine has been tried before…whether it was in western Europe or in Massachusetts…The problem with state-sponsored health care is that you cannot contain it just within the borders of your state. When that plan took effect, it also increased Medicare/Medicaid costs.
The implicit translation: “state-sponsored health care,” no matter where it begins, will inevitably spread to other states or to other countries. The specter of Communism is haunting Europe—that sort of threat. During the last presidential campaign we heard a lot about socialized medicine from the Republican candidates. We urged the press not to use the misleading and inflammatory term, and after a while, it didn’t. In particular we noted that the AP actually clarified for its readers what socialized medicine was and was not.
In this crop of stories about Perry’s latest speech in Iowa, Politico chose to play the socialized medicine comment with the headline “Perry slams ‘socialized medicine.’” Its story gave no explanation or context for the remark, instead moving on to Perry’s new attack theme—Mitt Romney is a rich kid and Perry is not. The night before at a Republican dinner in Iowa’s Greene County, Perry had a different way to describe the Massachusetts health plan. Reuters and the Des Moines Register reported that Perry told the crowd “government mandated, government-run health care is part of what he put in place as the governor of Massachusetts.”
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While I agree that Romneycare is not socialized medicine (see http://byrondennis.typepad.com/masshealthstats/2011/02/romneycare-is-not-socialized-medicine.html), you make many facutal errors below:
You say:
"While the state operates the exchange, it sells nothing..."
Yes it does. If you buy through the exchange you write a check to the state. The state acts as broker.
and
"...and underwrites no insurance."
Depends on how you mean that. The state certainly underwrites Commonwealth Care in the finanical sense and the Connector Authority does all the actuarial work to decide what the Commonwealth Care premiums will be.
Perry says:
"The problem with state-sponsored health care is that you cannot contain it just within the borders of your state." True
"When that plan took effect, it also increased Medicare/Medicaid costs..." True in the sense that it raised all costs in general and Medicare supplemental and Part C premiums in particular.
“... government mandated, government-run health care is part of what he put in place as the governor of Massachusetts.” True in that everyone on all sides of this issue simplistically leaves out the word insurance when talking about reform. Massachusetts has done nothing since Dukakacare to try to regulate healthcare; it has always been regulation of healthcare insurance.
You say:
"That’s no different from a state setting rules and regulations for other businesses."
Not really. The state of Massachusetts literally says what has to be in a healthcare insurance policy and does not let insurers sell catastrophic insurance. Much different than the way your portray it.
You say
"So insurance premiums haven’t decreased, especially for small businesses."
They have increased in proportion to the state mandates for minimum creditable coverage, not because of the reasons you proposed.
You say
"Since 1997, hospital costs in Massachusetts have been rising relative to the national average...
Right. And not coincidentally, that was the year of Celluccicare. All the attempts by Dukakis, Weld, Cellucci, Romney and Patrick have been absymal failures because all tried to manipulate a market.
#1 Posted by Dennis Byron, CJR on Mon 19 Sep 2011 at 05:15 PM
What Dennis said!
Damn! It's nice to see somebody else ringing the Reality Bell in Lieberman Liberal La La Land...
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 19 Sep 2011 at 07:52 PM
"Manipulate a market," huh? There's your trouble. Health care is not a market. It is a right associated with the human condition. Insurance is a market, and the attempts to suppress its ill effect on people fail because all such attempts are half-vast. We never needed health care reform. We need insurance reform, and as long as we allow market-driven forces (meaning profit-mongers) to control it, we will fail.
#3 Posted by Pete, CJR on Tue 20 Sep 2011 at 08:18 AM
But meanwhile Perry supports Tx law that requires proof of liability insurance. Is this the war on poor people I lost my job,now they don't deserve to drive. Most people aren't aware that if you get caught in TX with no liability insurance your vehicle can be towed, you will be assessed a $450 ticket, must provide proof that you have obtained insurance which cost $100 to file and a $260 annual surcharge for 3 years or you lose your license. Nearly $1,500 in fines and surcharges for someone that was obviously too poor to afford insurance. Is this fair well its the law under Rick Perry and yet he thinks mandatory heath care is unconstitutional and socialized. How much did the insurance companies donate? You may argue why not use public transportation well in short it sucks whatever normal travel time would be multiply it by 4 and it isn't available everywhere.
#4 Posted by Aera, CJR on Wed 21 Sep 2011 at 07:08 PM