Democrats like to throw it back in Scott Brown’s face that he voted for the Massachusetts health bill back in 2006. Mitt Romney gets it thrown back in his face a lot, too. That bill was the Mogwai to the current Gremlin of a proposal that Congress is trying to pass-without-passing.
Those critics don’t like to mention the problems Massachusetts is having now. And Romney and Brown aren’t about to issue the mea culpa the country needs to hear now.
As Bay State native Dan Flynn chronicles, the Massachusetts plan has increased coverage but also insurance costs. State treasurer Tim Cahill, a Democrat turned Independent, railed against the plan.
“This has been tried, and it failed,” Romney or Brown could plead of the current incarnation. “In Massachusetts, we tried this. It cost the state more, it cost patients more, and though there were more people insured they got less care for their money.” They might even quote Franklin Roosevelt: “It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.”
Jim Eltringham 