Now That Photo-Ops Are Over, Healthcare Law is Facing Unpleasant Realities
       In a surreal moment on Wednesday, Gov. Mitt Romney stood on a towering podium looking down on Sen. Edward Kennedy, Speaker Sal DiMasi, and news media from all over the country.
       There was a constant whirring sound of camera shutters. Printed programs and banners written from Romney’s staff declared that he was ''Making History in Healthcare". Aides to the governor busily passed out the campaign-style buttons and the programs.
       ''This is a politician's dream, you've got to admit that," he chuckled.
       Across the country, it is still being reported that Gov. Romney, a Republican, has somehow achieved the elusive goal that Pres. Clinton had aspired to in his first term: universal healthcare coverage. Yet, Romney’s plan is said to be a “free market based” plan, rather than socialized medicine. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation has been endorsing such a plan for years and helped Romney formulate this legislation.
       However, there are some critical issues that few seem to understand. First of all, it is not “Universal Healthcare”. That would require that an individual, by virtue of being a citizen of the state, is guaranteed some type of coverage.
       This plan does not. This plan is compulsory Healthcare. The state is mandating that everyone (barring the few below poverty guidelines), must purchase health insurance or else face harsh financial penalties. The irony that the state of Massachusetts, the veritable cradle of the Revolution, should impose such a coercive burden on its citizens without any serious objection cannot be understated.
       We were dumping tea in the harbor 200 years ago over a few pennies tax on a commodity. Middle-class families could now be looking at being forced to spend 20% of their income on a product, or face the wrath of the Department of Revenue. We are hailing this as a good thing?
       What this law will say when it is finally written still remains unknown. We know that citizens are going to be forced to buy health insurance, the obvious questions “How much will it cost?”, “What will it cover?” and “Who will provide it?” are still mysteries. If a typical family policy costs $1200 a month now, and the policies are going to be provided by the existing for-profit insurance companies, why are we expecting these policies to suddenly cost substantially less?
       Did Blue Cross/Blue Shield pony up to the table and acknowledge that they really could offer the same product for half the price all along and still make a profit, but they just didn’t want to? Or have the doctors, hospitals and prescription drug companies offered their services at half price to make all this work? The answer, of course is none of the above. But in order for this plan to work, the board that will be overseeing cost control in the plan is somehow going to find this 50% savings.
       The unpleasant reality of the plan is that, when all of the laws are finally written, the only way to get the dollars and cents to work is exact the money out of unhappy and unwilling individuals, either by forced premium payments or higher taxes in a socialized medicine scheme.
       In its critical analysis of the Massachusetts “universal” healthcare bill, the Cato Institute foresaw that it “will almost certainly lead to a cascading series of additional mandates and regulations resulting in a government-run health care system…(it) is clearly not the way to go.”
       One way or another, we are all going to have to pay. Either individuals will be paying, under penalty of law for a health product up front, or in new taxes, while we watch our healthcare system become swallowed up by a state bureaucracy famous for its lack of foresight and inefficiency. Those are the realities.