RomneyCare gets a bailout
Congress has bailed out out RomneyCare at a cost of $4.3 billion:
Massachusetts received the Bush administration’s seal of approval for its universal health care plan on Tuesday when it reached agreement with federal officials on financing a three-year continuation of the landmark experiment.But Mitt Romney says that this was a free-market approach to healthcare, which it isn't. RomneyCare has been a disaster and he had warnings that this program was a bad idea.Gov. Deval Patrick announced in Boston that the state and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had negotiated the extension of a waiver that enables federal financial support for the state’s subsidized coverage plan. The agreement will allow the state to spend up to $21.2 billion on the program over the next three years, an increase of $4.3 billion over the initial three-year period.
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The plan’s rapid growth has generated fiscal pressures. The legislature and Mr. Patrick filled a health care spending gap that approached $200 million for this fiscal year by increasing the tobacco tax by $1 a pack, levying one-time assessments on insurers and hospitals, and raising more money from businesses that do not contribute to their employees’ insurance. The state expects to spend $869 million on subsidized coverage this year.
