Sunday, February 21, 2010

The more things change the more they stay the same!




Listened to Ronald Reagan's inaugural address from 1980. Mitt Romney could give this exact same speech word for word in 2012, and every word would still be relevant. Government spending is still out of control, taxes are still too high, America will not yield to terrorists, etc.

Powerful words, by the Gipper. You gotta love it.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Better Health Care?



New Ad from the Galen Institute, the link to their website has been added on the right. It's an institute that promotes free market solutions for the health care industry. Good stuff!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The answer is unleashing markets-not government




Newsweek

By Mitt Romney

I hear loud and clear from people in my state, and from across the country, what they want to see in health care. They want it to cost less, have the highest quality and see that it extends to all Americans—even when they lose their job or when they're sick. Republicans agree. So do Democrats. Where we disagree is how to get the job done.

Our divide is fundamental: Republicans believe health care can be best guided by consumers, physicians and markets; Democrats believe government would do better. Some Democrats would have government buy health care for us; set the rates for doctors, hospitals and medicines; and decide what medical treatment we would be entitled to receive for each illness. If you liked the HMOs of the '80s, you'd love government-run health care.

Democrats have been winning. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicaid bill, he estimated it would cost $500 million. Today, it costs $500 billion. Politicians have expanded government coverage to more and more people. They propose that we adopt European-style, government-financed health care. But, in some respects, they've already gotten us there: the government now spends more per citizen on health care than do the governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom or Sweden.

But government can't match consumers and markets when it comes to lowering cost, improving quality and boosting productivity. Compare the U.S. Postal Service with UPS and Federal Express. Stack North Korea against South Korea.

The right answer for health care is to apply more market force, not less. Here's how:

1. Get everyone insured. Help low-income households retain or purchase private insurance with a tax credit, voucher or coinsurance. Use the tens of billions we now give hospitals for free care to instead help people buy and keep their own private insurance. For the uninsured who can afford insurance but expect to be given free care at the hospital, require them to either pay for their own care or buy insurance; if they do neither, they would forgo the tax credit or lose a deduction. No more "free riders."

This is the basic plan I proposed in Massachusetts. It has worked: 360,000 previously uninsured citizens now have private health insurance. The total number of uninsured has been reduced by almost 75 percent. The Massachusetts plan costs the state more than expected, largely because the legislature has been unwilling to further reduce state payments to hospitals for free care. The costs should be brought in line by eliminating these payments, by requiring sustainable copremiums and by removing coverage mandates (for example, every policy is now required to include unlimited in vitro fertilization procedures).

2. Make health insurance affordable and portable. Eliminate the tax discrimination against consumers who purchase insurance on their own. This, plus getting everyone insured, will sharply lower insurance costs (in Massachusetts, the premium for a single male has declined by almost 50 percent). The result: Americans wouldn't have to worry that their insurance would be unaffordable or canceled if they changed or lost a job.

3. Give people an incentive to care how expensive and how good their health-care treatment will be. Learn from the French and Swiss experience with coinsurance, where the insured pays a given percent of the entire bill, up to some upper limit. Unlike a deductible, where there is no cost to the insured once a threshold has been reached, coinsurance means that the insured continues to care about cost.

4. Provide citizens with information about the cost and quality of providers and the effectiveness of alternative treatments. This transparency, when it's combined with a meaningful personal financial incentive, will help health care work more like a consumer market.

5.Reform Medicare and Medicaid, likewise applying market principles to lower cost and improve patient care.

6. Center reforms at the state level. Open the door to state plans designed to meet the various needs of their citizens. Before imposing a one-size-fits-all federal program, let the states serve as "the laboratories of democracy."

Republicans have introduced bills in Washington that promote these and other consumer-driven policies. In every one, the patient and doctor guide care, not the government—and that makes all the difference.

Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts.

© 2009

Obama, hold apology. World owes U.S. thanks.



Women and children survivors in Mauthausen speak to an American liberator through a barbed wire fence.


Romney Op-Ed: Obama, hold apology. World owes U.S. thanks.

Boston Herald

By Mitt Romney

Just a few days from now, we will mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day. I’m sure some of you have been to Normandy. I have. I saw the acre upon acre of crosses and stars that mark the resting place of those who gave the last full measure of devotion to their country’s cause. They were sent by an awakened American nation to liberate a continent. In the shadow of World War II’s desolation, they resolutely shouldered the burden of defending freedom.

That burden did not end with that war. Because of what America did in the 20th century, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who now live in freedom - who, but for the price paid by the United States, would have lived in despair. I know of no other such example of national selflessness. That is why America is the hope of the earth.

That is also why I take issue with President Barack Obama’s recent tour of apology. It’s not because America hasn’t made mistakes - we have - but because America’s mistakes are overwhelmed by what America has meant to the hopes and aspirations of people throughout the world.

The president claimed on Arabic TV that America has dictated to other nations. No, America has sacrificed to free other nations from dictators. With all that is transpiring in the world - in Iran, North Korea, Georgia, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan - this is the time for strength and confidence, not for apologizing to America’s critics.

North Korea has made it clear that it is not only intent on perfecting nuclear weapons, but it is contemptuous of the concerns of the U.S. and the world at large. They executed their nuclear test to coincide with Memorial Day. The on-again, off-again talks have been nothing but stalling maneuvers. While diplomats celebrate yet another agreement, North Korea continues down the nuclear path Kim Jong-Il has long pursued.

Tyrants can not be stopped by earnest words and furrowed brows. Action, strong bold action coming from a position of strength and determination, is the only effective deterrent.

It is time to apply comprehensive, regime-crippling sanctions to North Korea. Assets should be seized; international financial capabilities terminated. North Korea should be recategorized as a state sponsor of terror. And, most importantly, the president should reverse his recent decisions and support completing our ballistic missile defense system.

Missile defense is a non-nuclear, entirely defensive system designed to protect not just America but the world from a catastrophic attack. Yet the president plans to cut the missile defense budget by 15 percent, cut funding for missile defense sites in Europe by 80 percent and reduce the number of planned interceptors in Alaska. That is a grave miscalculation, given the provocations from North Korea, Iran’s near-nuclear status, Pakistan’s instability and the complete failure of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Rarely in history has any development carried such awful possibilities as a nuclear-armed missile in the hands of evil men. And rarely in history has any program had the promise to do more good or spare more suffering than a system of missile defense. This is too big an issue for ideology or politics to prevail over national security.

Mitt Romney on TODAY (6/3)