Obamacare at Work

The health care system in Massachusetts, also known as "Romneycare" after Mitt Romney, the governor who created it, is basically a state-sized version of Obamacare and we can see in what's going on in Massachusetts what will happen on a national scale when Obamacare is fully implemented.

It's not pretty.

Health care costs are skyrocketing and the state has decided to cut costs by denying insurers the right to charge enough for their policies to cover their costs. Insurers are suing:

A half-dozen health insurers yesterday filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to reverse last week’s decision by the insurance commissioner to block double-digit premium increases — a ruling they say could leave them with hundreds of millions in losses this year.

The proposed rate hikes would have taken effect April 1 for plans covering thousands of small businesses and individuals. Insurers wanted to raise base rates an average of 8 percent to 32 percent; tacked on to that are often additional costs calculated according to factors such as the size and age of the workforce. …

Governor Deval Patrick has made reining in runaway health care costs a centerpiece of his administration and his campaign for reelection — contending they are stifling the capacity of small businesses to create jobs. At the same time, health insurers argue that government is forcing them to sell policies at a loss that is unsustainable as the costs of medical services climb.

The only difference between Romneycare and Obamacare is that the stated goal in Massachusetts was not the destruction of the private insurance industry, though that's what will happen if the insurers cannot recoup their costs. At a national level this is exactly what Obamacare hopes to do - make it impossible for private insurers to survive so the government will be the insurer of last resort.

Looks like Gov. Patrick is helping things along by trying to put the Massachusetts companies out of business first.