Apr 5, 2006

Otto Von Romney

by Liberty and Power

First, Bush, assisted by the"hammer" of Tom Delay, pushed through the most radical increase in the welfare state (prescription drug subsidies)since LBJ. Now, his conservative counterpart in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has promised to sign a mandatory health insurance bill that makes Hillarycare look mild by comparison:

The plan — approved just 24 hours after the final details were released — would use a combination of financial incentives and penalties to dramatically expand access to health care over the next three years and extend coverage to the state's estimated 500,000 uninsured.
If all goes as planned, poor people will be offered free or heavily subsidized coverage; those who can afford insurance but refuse to get it will face increasing tax penalties until they obtain coverage; and those already insured will see a modest drop in their premiums.
The measure does not call for new taxes but would require businesses that do not offer insurance to pay a $295 annual fee per employee.
The cost was put at $316 million in the first year, and more than a $1 billion by the third year, with much of that money coming from federal reimbursements and existing state spending, officials said....
Individuals deemed able but unwilling to purchase health care could face fines of more than $1,000 a year by the state if they don't get insurance.

UPDATE: Otto Von Bailey?

Ronald Bailey over at Reason's Hit and Run praises the compulsory feature of the bill.

More Comments:

Robert Higgs - 4/5/2006

"Socialism with a crony capitalist garnish"? No. Just a bit more fascism, to add to the already overwhelmingly fascist economy the proud American people have built over the past century. Somewhere in Hell, the Nazis that the Americans hanged at Nuremberg must be smiling.

Grant Gould - 4/5/2006

Bailey's argument -- that in the current political climate mandatory insurance is the best way to stave off socialized medicine -- is a reasonable one. Often one must settle for a bad solution to avoid (or at least delay) a worse one.

Or rather, it's reasonable many places. I'm not so sure about here in Massachusetts. MA is so fond of regulating the coverage and prices of insurance -- and its remaining insurers correspondingly good at turning such regulation into price cartels -- that this is likely to turn into socialized medicine anyway, albeit with a profit-taking private intermediary.

Insurers will be regulated as to what coverage to offer; spared the burden of competition on features, they will be able easily to coordinate prices and lobby (as auto insurers did) for a state price-fixing scheme to seal away competition permanently. With prices and features thus dictated by state rather than market, the whole purpose of the private insurers will be to skim off a bit of money as middlemen. Socialism with a crony capitalist garnish.