Monday, October 17, 2011

Healthcare Post #1

With the upcoming primaries and presidential campaigns, it is important to start learning about each candidate's perspective. One major issue that many Americans are concerned about is our nation's healthcare system. A front runner on the Republican side, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, has many ideas about our current healthcare system and has plans to change certain things if elected next year.

-If elected, Romney plans to repeal "Obamacare" in all 50 states as quickly as possible.
-He thinks that each state should have its own insurance plan as opposed to one, nationwide plan.
-He encourages private medicine.
-He has made a promise to secure Medicare and Social Security benefits for the current retirees (but does not say how).
-He is opposed to Medicare cuts.
-He does not support giving "free rides" to those who are able to pay for insurance and health car, but choose not to. This essentially means he will not approve of free hospital visits with the expectation that others will pay for it. (I wonder if this goes for all Americans, or just those who cannot afford insurance? If the latter, how will we decide who is capable of paying and who does not have to? He does not elaborate).
-He does support the effort to get every person some sort of coverage, at least of the most basic form.

http://www.issues2000.org/Mitt_Romney.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mitt-romney-defends-massachusetts-health-care-criticizes-obamacare/story?id=13590602

Questions for Romney about his healthcare plans:
-How soon do you think you could put your new plans into effect?
-How will you decide who gets federal coverage and who must pay for it themselves?
-How does your plan differ from Obamacare? There are a lot of similarities.

1 comment:

  1. Romney is interesting on this topic because when governor he supported his state's (Mass.) attempt to provide healthcare for all. Other Republicans have labeled him liberal and a sell out for this fact from his past. Might be interesting to see what Mass. has done on this topic.

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