Health official: 'Obamacare' was once 'Romneycare'

[cal04]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20101110/us-health-care-insurance/

Websites where consumers will be able to shop for health insurance are a lynchpin of the nation's new health care law and have a history of conservative support, a top federal official said Wednesday.

"You could say Obamacare was Romneycare before it was Obamacare," said Joel Ario of the Office of Insurance Exchanges in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He spoke at a meeting in Chicago of the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans.

Potential Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was persuaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation to support online insurance exchanges when he was governor of Massachusetts, Ario said. The exchanges became a key to Massachusetts' health overhaul, which in turn became the model for nation's law.

(snip)
"Thirty-two million new customers. Everybody has to buy the product and many of them come with subsidies," Ario said. "I really just don't know what's not to like in that for you guys. It's a pretty big opportunity."

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. That will sink Romney's chances among the crackpots on the right.

One down, many to go.

[BlueCheese]

2. That last line is classic.

"Thirty-two million new customers. Everybody has to buy the product and many of them come with subsidies," Ario said. "I really just don't know what's not to like in that for you guys. It's a pretty big opportunity."

[amborin]

3. Columbia U analysis:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8011225&mesg_id=8011225

[BzaDem]

4. Bullshit. You say thirty two million customers, but half of them will be on a GOVERNMENT-RUN plan

(Medicaid). That's hundreds of billions of spending to help poor people get government insurance.

[sabrina 1]

7. And at least 20% of that public money will go into the hands

of the corrupt, predatory Health Insurance Corps for profit.

Spending public money this way is not fiscally sound.

Overhead for Medicaid is 3%. Now it's 20% or more.

Why does that money have to pass through middlemen? It is a waste of money. Any public funds being used should be administered as it always was, by the government which would have ensured that most of it goes to actual health care.

[Submariner]

5. "I really just don't know what's not to like in that for you guys.

What's no to like? For a single Boomer; Romneycare would cost $492/month with a $4000 deductible, that's what not to like. F'ing moron!

I told the state to shove their mandatory Romneycare scam, and they backed off, so instead of paying a $1012 fine, they sent me my $6.00 state tax return refund.

[Fumesucker]

6. He's talking about the insurance companies..

It's a huge windfall for them..