Romney Gets ALL the Credit for RomneyCare?
Today is the 5th anniversary of the signing of Chapter 58 (health care reform) here in Massachusetts. The anniversary has sparked a round of opportunistic political posturing from Democrats (and friends) thanking Mitt Romney profusely for his contribution. In return, Romney announced he is thinking about running for President.
The one question I have is—Where is the love for former speaker Sal DiMasi? According to Governing magazine, he was the real power broker of the deal. I guess federal indictments hurt the number of times you are publically given credit.
On a slightly more serious note, I will have an op-ed in the Boston Herald tomorrow describing the failure of the Connector to attract small company business. Also see Pioneer’s paper Fixing the Massachusetts Health Exchange for seven steps to help fix this problem.
I am naively hoping that starting tomorrow the Massachusetts health reform law will be less about politics and more about policy. The implications last longer than the next election, and directly impacts the well-being of the 1+ million people who work for companies with less than 100 employees in Massachusetts. Our state has some gaps that it needs to address, I can assure you that scoring political points will not fix them.
