Romney seeks tax breaks to help buy health coverage
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Aliza Marcus
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will propose tax breaks to help Americans pay for health insurance and incentives for states to craft their own programs to make sure everyone gets coverage.
Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts supported legislation requiring all residents to have health-insurance coverage, said today that such decisions should be left to the states, rather than being ordered by the U.S. government, campaign policy director Sally Canfield said.
Republican rival Rudy Giuliani proposed tax credits last month to help Americans pay for private medical insurance, underscoring the importance of health-care change among U.S. voters. While Republicans are focused on revising the tax code, leading Democratic candidates say they see a bigger role for government in providing health care for low-income people and in keeping insurance premiums affordable.
``Romney's not setting up a single model for the country and that's what he wants to contrast with the Democrats,'' said Robert Blendon, a health-policy professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ``He wants to say we don't need a national plan, what we need is a 50-state plan.''
The plan would give states the ability to tackle their health-care problems by loosening restrictions on how they use U.S. government Medicaid money that pays for health care for the poor. States also could make regulatory changes in their insurance markets to make it easier for companies to create lower-cost plans.
``We want states to have flexibility,'' Canfield said in a telephone interview. ``We want states to look at where the uninsured are'' and come up with their own plans.
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney approved a health-care plan that used Medicaid money to subsidize private health premiums for low-income people. The individual and small business insurance markets were merged to create a larger risk pool that was cheaper to insure. Everyone was required to buy coverage, helping spread risk by making certain not just the sick participate.
Romney's new health proposal mirrors much of what was done while he was state governor, except for his support for making health insurance mandatory, similar to the requirement that car owners have auto insurance.
The idea of forcing people to buy health coverage is controversial in Republican circles, and Romney's decided to ``walk away'' from this, Blendon said. ``But he can't walk away too far from Massachusetts, because one of his arguments for electing him president is that he gets things done, so he can't say he did this and it's a mistake.''
The role of the U.S. government is best left to changing the tax code to help people pay medical costs, Romney said in his presentation at the Florida Medical Association's annual meeting in Hollywood, Florida. His campaign staff said a transcript of the speech would be available later in the day.
Health-care premiums are going up about double the rate of wages, and health costs make up about 16 percent of the U.S. economy, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, California.
Romney, whose personal fortune is as much as $247 million, wants to make it easier for people to take tax deductions on their medical expenses, including the price of health insurance premiums and any out-of-pocket costs after the insurance pays out.
Right now people can use tax-free dollars under limited circumstances. With some accounts, they need to plan ahead or risk losing what money is unused by the year's end.
``Rather than deconstructing the system we have today or replacing it with a government-run system that squelches innovation, Governor Romney will `do no harm' by leaving in place the elements of the system that work well while targeting change in the parts of the system that do not,'' according to a campaign statement posted on Romney's Web site.
Making changes on the federal or state level to help America's 45 million uninsured get coverage, and to make health care more affordable for everyone, will not require new spending or new taxes, Romney said.
This is in contrast to the leading Democratic candidates, who have said they would pay for health-care changes by eliminating President George W. Bush's tax breaks for people earning more than $250,000 a year.
``The central thing he's trying to do is be associated with the idea that the federal government should spur on states to do things,'' Blendon said. ``I think he's arguing that Massachusetts is just one model for a state.''
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Bloomberg
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will propose tax breaks to help Americans pay for health insurance and incentives for states to craft their own programs to make sure everyone gets coverage.
Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts supported legislation requiring all residents to have health-insurance coverage, said today that such decisions should be left to the states, rather than being ordered by the U.S. government, campaign policy director Sally Canfield said.
Republican rival Rudy Giuliani proposed tax credits last month to help Americans pay for private medical insurance, underscoring the importance of health-care change among U.S. voters. While Republicans are focused on revising the tax code, leading Democratic candidates say they see a bigger role for government in providing health care for low-income people and in keeping insurance premiums affordable.
``Romney's not setting up a single model for the country and that's what he wants to contrast with the Democrats,'' said Robert Blendon, a health-policy professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ``He wants to say we don't need a national plan, what we need is a 50-state plan.''
The plan would give states the ability to tackle their health-care problems by loosening restrictions on how they use U.S. government Medicaid money that pays for health care for the poor. States also could make regulatory changes in their insurance markets to make it easier for companies to create lower-cost plans.
``We want states to have flexibility,'' Canfield said in a telephone interview. ``We want states to look at where the uninsured are'' and come up with their own plans.
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney approved a health-care plan that used Medicaid money to subsidize private health premiums for low-income people. The individual and small business insurance markets were merged to create a larger risk pool that was cheaper to insure. Everyone was required to buy coverage, helping spread risk by making certain not just the sick participate.
Romney's new health proposal mirrors much of what was done while he was state governor, except for his support for making health insurance mandatory, similar to the requirement that car owners have auto insurance.
The idea of forcing people to buy health coverage is controversial in Republican circles, and Romney's decided to ``walk away'' from this, Blendon said. ``But he can't walk away too far from Massachusetts, because one of his arguments for electing him president is that he gets things done, so he can't say he did this and it's a mistake.''
The role of the U.S. government is best left to changing the tax code to help people pay medical costs, Romney said in his presentation at the Florida Medical Association's annual meeting in Hollywood, Florida. His campaign staff said a transcript of the speech would be available later in the day.
Health-care premiums are going up about double the rate of wages, and health costs make up about 16 percent of the U.S. economy, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, California.
Romney, whose personal fortune is as much as $247 million, wants to make it easier for people to take tax deductions on their medical expenses, including the price of health insurance premiums and any out-of-pocket costs after the insurance pays out.
Right now people can use tax-free dollars under limited circumstances. With some accounts, they need to plan ahead or risk losing what money is unused by the year's end.
``Rather than deconstructing the system we have today or replacing it with a government-run system that squelches innovation, Governor Romney will `do no harm' by leaving in place the elements of the system that work well while targeting change in the parts of the system that do not,'' according to a campaign statement posted on Romney's Web site.
Making changes on the federal or state level to help America's 45 million uninsured get coverage, and to make health care more affordable for everyone, will not require new spending or new taxes, Romney said.
This is in contrast to the leading Democratic candidates, who have said they would pay for health-care changes by eliminating President George W. Bush's tax breaks for people earning more than $250,000 a year.
``The central thing he's trying to do is be associated with the idea that the federal government should spur on states to do things,'' Blendon said. ``I think he's arguing that Massachusetts is just one model for a state.''
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Bloomberg