Is Romney right?

Did you read Mitt Romney’s article about the Mass. health care plan? He’s saying the right things.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008213

Readers know that I am a free-market guy, stridently so. Health care is an exceptional problem because we are unwilling to withhold it, even to people who don’t pay. Is Romney onto something?

I think he clearly understands the problem and the importance of market forces. He said the right, soothing things for libertarians like me. I just wonder how much I should believe.

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Update: Brendan Miniter is not convinced. His concerns and premises are correct, but has very little to say that directly rebuts Romney.

I feel like I’d be a fool to assume that a gov’t health plan can be anything but a disaster. Romney has come closer than anyone to opening my mind that it might be solvable.

Downside: it’s state-managed health care. Upside: it’s not federally-managed health care.

Even though we may be unhappy about this ideologically, if states are successful in this regard (big big if), it will preempt the political momentum that might inevitably develop for a federal solution. And it would deny the Dems a big issue at the national level.

As a matter of political reality, this may turn out to be the lesser of two evils. You didn’t hear that from me.

Comments

[John Dunshee]

I'm pretty much a free market guy also. But the reality of the situation is that some kind of universal health care is going to be enacted in the not-to-distant future.

While I'm skeptical of the ability of the government to manage anything (I have been a government employee for over thirty years) this plan seems to keep government involvement to an absolute minimum. It looks like instead of taking over the health care system completely, they are going to purchase or subsidize insurance policies. That's a lot different than the Canada style single payer system that is so loved by the leftists.

This isn't perfect, but it might be the best we can hope for.