George W Bush and Obamacare
I leaned more than usual from this better than usual Ezra Klein post. I knew that Romneycare was largely financed by the Federal Government, but I didn’t know how.
The key question for any health-care plan is how are you going to pay for it? The Massachusetts plan used three funding sources.
The first — and, in some ways, the most important — was a $385 million annual payment then-Sen. Ted Kennedy had negotiated for the state’s safety net hospitals. President George W. Bush wanted to end the payment. That set off a panic in Massachusetts, and led to Romney and Kennedy going to the Bush administration and making a deal: Massachusetts could keep the money if they put it towards a universal health-care plan. Oh, and they needed to come up with that plan soon.
This was the threat that forced Romney and the state’s Democrats to pass a plan, as not passing a plan would mean losing billions in free federal money.
The state also found two other funding sources [expand Medicaid and use a fund which compensating hospitals for otherwise uncompensated care of the uninsured].
Wow. Somehow Bush tricked himself into forcing a laboratory of Democracy to show that universal health insurance was feasible. Of course this also reminds me that Sen Kennedy was a brilliant passionate extremely hard working hero, but I already knew that.
So Bush did two good things (the other is PEPFAR).
The key point of the post is not the interesting historiography but the observation that state level reform similar to the Massachusetts reform will be impossible if Romney manages to cut Medicaid (indeed Massachusetts might have to abandon universal coverage if Medicaid were no longer “helping Massachusetts cover kids and adults up to 300 percent of the poverty line”).
The claim that “Bush tricked himself into forcing a laboratory of Democracy to show that universal health insurance was feasible” requires expanding Medicaid and the equivalent of $385 million per state of free money.
Is that your definition of “showing universal health insurance was feasible”? By spending a lot more money?
I love the way Bush’s goon’s characterized Teddy’s work to get the $385 million for the safety net hospitals as a ‘slush fund for Kennedy’. The right’s hatred of him and their world view so cynical that they simply couldn’t grasp his motivation.
neither “anonymous” above is coherent enough for me to understand their point… or at least the argument that supports their point.
but while there is no such thing as “free money” there is some reason to think that the federal government, and federal taxes, can do a better job with “universal health care” than the states. this of course is not always true, but don’t expect the state’s rights crowd to think about it.
and as for “spending more money”, well, once again, the way you get something, whether in capitalism or socialism, is to pay for it. this of course is something that anonymous does not understand.
“Is that your definition of “showing universal health insurance was feasible”? By spending a lot more money?”
That universal health insurance is feasible has been shown by all the other industrialized nations on the planet. They have done so at a fraction of the cost per capita of our privatized system, and with as good or better outcomes.