Romney Responds to the Wall Street Journal

Mitt Romney writes:

I was not surprised to read yet another editorial in the Journal yesterday criticizing the health-care reforms we enacted in Massachusetts ("Obama's Running Mate," May 12). I was, however, not expecting the distortions of what we accomplished. Let me deal with some of them.

One, the editorial asserts that people in Massachusetts who wouldn't buy coverage, even though they could afford it, was not a major fiscal problem. But as a state we were spending almost $1 billion on free care for the uninsured. What we did was convert that money into premium support for those who needed help buying a policy, and require those uninsured who could afford to buy coverage to take personal responsibility for their own health care. Two, while it's true that insurance premiums in Massachusetts are among the highest in the nation, that was also the case before reform. A truer statement would be that getting everyone insured is not by itself enough to bring down the costs of health care. And finally, it is simply wrong to say that state spending on health care in Massachusetts has skyrocketed. The cost of the health-care plan to the state budget is "relatively modest" and well within projections, according to the independent Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. They conclude that the new state spending on reform has amounted to less than 1% of the state budget each year.

While I have had my disagreements with the Journal's editorial board, where we find common ground is on the need to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with reforms that empower states to craft their own solutions. A one-size-fits-all plan that raises taxes and ignores the very real differences between states is the wrong course for our nation.