RomneyCare, like the PPACA, is a 'monstrosity'

October 17, 2012 12:11 am

Bernard Mahoney ["Bay State model for national health care works," Oct. 14] gives terrible advice and misinformation about Massachusetts' failed RomneyCare experiments and the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mahoney says he is a former resident of Massachusetts. I am a current and lifelong resident of Massachusetts and a victim of both RomneyCare and the PPACA. The experience is as bad as you can imagine (see all the jokes about getting health care insurance at the DMV). No one understands either of these monstrosities of legislation.

RomneyCare has had to be amended five times in six years; expect the same of the PPACA. The Massachusetts legislature has now passed price controls, just the opposite of what the PPACA said it would accomplish. Expect the same of the PPACA.

Mahoney is right that "Romney focused on the theme of personal responsibility." But after that, all Romney's decisions, and Obama's subsequent decisions, were wrong, based on false data.

First, there was no "huge number of people in Massachusetts going to the emergency room," other than those with an emergency. There was no substantial number of freeloaders who could afford health insurance but weren't buying it.

Mahoney misleads about a high rate of insured in Massachusetts because of RomneyCare. It has always been high (plus or minus 95 percent), and all RomneyCare did was move it up to 98 percent.

The number of employers offering insurance has increased, but the number of Massachusetts residents getting insurance through employers has decreased because employers have simply moved people to part time (with no benefits) or priced the insurance so it is unaffordable.

Long before RomneyCare, Massachusetts had a ban on denial for pre-existing conditions. It is expensive for all of us, but gives peace of mind. If Virginia wants that, it should pass it and not depend on the federal government.

Almost all Massachusetts insurers are nonprofits. Our medical loss ratio has always been close to 90 percent (again, except for Medicare). The PPACA did nothing to improve that.

Dennis Byron

Cape Cod, Mass.