ObamaCare vs. RomneyCare – Fact Checking!

            With the House voting on the repeal of ObamaCare once again today, what could be better than taking some time to reflect on the past and return to an issue which is still semi-relevant in the healthcare bill debate: ObamaCare vs. RomneyCare, particularly the length of the two bills. One of the many hot topics in the 2012 political election is the condition of the United States’ economy. Discussion of our economy often leads to discussing ObamaCare, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). During the CNN-hosted Republican Debate in Arizona in late February 2012, audience member Gilbert Fidler from Gilbert, Arizona asked the GOP candidates, “Since the first time in 65 years our national debt exceeds our gross national product, what are you going to do to bring down the debt?” A contender for the Republican nomination at the time, Senator Rick Santorum stated, “Obviously, the first thing we need to do is repeal ObamaCare.” Ever since winning the GOP nomination, Romney has started using a similar, if not identical statement regarding repealing ObamaCare in many of his speeches (this didn’t turn out in Romney’s favor in his speech to the NAACP earlier today, but that’s a whole other story). Whether praising him or blaming him for his healthcare bill, Mitt Romney still often finds RomneyCare being compared to ObamaCare.

            Before the GOP nomination was decided, Santorum blamed Governor Romney for ObamaCare in hopes people would steer clear of choosing Romney as the Republican nominee. Santorum stated the Massachusetts Healthcare Insurance Reform Law, better known as RomneyCare, was the precursor for the national healthcare bill. “The whole reason this issue is alive is because of the bill that you drafted in Massachusetts, RomneyCare, which was the model for ObamaCare and the government takeover of healthcare,” said Santorum to Romney during the Republican Debate. Romney responsed: “Let's point this out, our bill [RomneyCare] was 70 pages. His bill [ObamaCare] is 2700 pages.”

          Everything a politician says should be fact checked, so I thought I’d take the liberty for you: According to Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, Romney “is double-counting pages and adding things that had little to do with healthcare. The correct comparison is about 145 pages (RomneyCare) to 200 pages (ObamaCare).” Politico.com published an article in November 2009 stating, “In the Battle of the Health Bills, the Senate wins out, bulk-wise – weighing in at 2,074 pages…. The table of contents alone is 14 pages.” On The 187^th General Court of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts legislative website, one can print chapter 58 of the state’s Session Laws, “An Act Providing Access To Affordable, Quality, Accountable Heath Care.” This printout of RomneyCare is 68 pages long.

            The fact checking on the length of these two healthcare bills did not stop there: Igor Volsky of Think Progressive reported in June 2011, “Michael Cannon, director of health policy at the Cato Institute… estimated that the section of the national law that directly compares to Romney’s law is only about 200 pages of the 907-page version.” Five years earlier Boston Globe staff members Scott Helman and Liz Kowalczyk reported, “Before signing the bill yesterday, Romney vetoed eight provisions in the 145-page bill, including the business fee and an expansion of Medicaid benefits for certain recipients.” Kessler published an article in June 2011 which said, “The bills [the Senate version and the reconciled House version of ObamaCare] also included elements that had nothing to do with universal healthcare, such as an overhaul of student loans and new long-term care legislation.” When dealing with the fact that the RomneyCare and ObamaCare bills have been specified to be so many different lengths, Kessler said, “The number of pages depends not only on the words in the bill, but also the text size and even the page size.”

            Perhaps RomneyCare was the right choice for the state of Massachusetts, but not all of the U.S. is the same and therefore a one-size-fits-all concept doesn’t always work in this country. Pointing to states rights and allowing states to create healthcare bills which work best for each of their individual demographics might be the correct move for the American healthcare system, as it does not look like everyone is going to agree on a national healthcare bill any time soon; we cannot agree on the length of the bills, never mind the content. As for the fact checking on the length of ObamaCare versus RomneyCare, no one can come to a definitive conclusion as to how long each proposed bill or law was. Therefore, I say it is time to put political jargon aside and simply accept that RomneyCare was shorter than ObamaCare, at least that’s what all this fact checking seems to point out. However, take what that means with a grain of salt – it is time to move on.