# Mitt Romney talking about health-care on Letterman **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 3, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204 "2010-03-03T23:50:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/41 "2010-03-06T01:14:17Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I understand that there are extra costs involved in making items and machines that are appropriate for medical facilities, but I also think, no cite, just my opinion, that companies raise the cost of their products a little more just because what they are selling is for medical use. You may well be right. In our current system there is no incentive for insurers to cut the cost of medical care overall. The more medical care costs, the more people need insurance and the more they are willing to pay for it. It is better for the insurance company to rake 5% off of a 2 trillion dollar business than a 1 trillion dollar one. Now of course that would only work if insurance companies were exempt from anti-trust. That is just crazy talk of course. ---
**Author:** ![Razrak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/razrak/32/5888_2.png) [@Razrak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razrak)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/42 "2010-03-06T01:14:35Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I don’t get it. If no prescription is written, then how does the person benefit? If a prescription _is_ written, why isn’t the doctor in jail? No presciption is written. The person benefits because they get Tylenol for free. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/43 "2010-03-06T16:22:19Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Romney’s plan was announced at the Heritage Foundation in DC, and was put together with the help of Heritage economists. In this case, the right wing think tanks were trying to help. > > However, the Mass plan is not socialist. It does require everyone to have insurance, and it provides a state buying pool for purchasing from insurance companies as I recall. Not so much of a public option as a public marketplace for grouping up. > > [http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCAre/wm1045.cfm](http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCAre/wm1045.cfm) It does require everybody to have insurance. The socialist Romney’s healthcare plan is almost exactly the same as the socialist Obama’s. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/44 "2010-03-07T06:18:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Mitt Romney > Everything in the world that is touched by a market place where consumers get to make choices, you end up with lower and lower costs and better and better quality. Healthcare is not run like a consumer market, it’s run like a regulated utility. You think about this, the patient, the customer if you will, goes in to get some kind of treatment, they’re not going pay anything for it, as long as they passed their deductable it’s all free. They don’t care if the hospital is going to charge $50,000 or $5,000 for the operation because, frankly, they’re not paying. To make health-care bring our cost down we gotta change the incentives and to get health-care more like the consumer market. We do that, and we’ll find a way to bring our health-care costs down. [I haven’t read any of the responses] I was raised Republican, so I think I can translate. “If we allow the poor free access to healthcare, then they will abuse it. Poor people will be constantly coming into hospitals to get chemotherapy and lung transplants that they don’t need only because it doesn’t cost them anything. Even if they are perfectly healthy, they’ll get their tonsils taken out just for the free ice cream. Guys will be coming in to get a vasectomy, and then again to get it reversed, and then to get a vasectomy again, instead of buying a pack of condoms, because the vasectomy is free. It’s a situation fraught with potential for abuse.” ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/45 "2010-03-07T15:55:29Z")
> [@Rucksinator](#): > > [I haven’t read any of the responses] > > I was raised Republican, so I think I can translate. > > “If we allow the poor free access to healthcare, then they will abuse it. Poor people will be constantly coming into hospitals to get chemotherapy and lung transplants that they don’t need only because it doesn’t cost them anything. Even if they are perfectly healthy, they’ll get their tonsils taken out just for the free ice cream. Guys will be coming in to get a vasectomy, and then again to get it reversed, and then to get a vasectomy again, instead of buying a pack of condoms, because the vasectomy is free. It’s a situation fraught with potential for abuse.” I don’t think that is a fair characterization; but substitute black for poor and you are right on the money. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/46 "2010-03-07T18:51:07Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I don’t think that is a fair characterization; but substitute black for poor and you are right on the money. Mitt Romney is racist? Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/47 "2010-03-07T18:53:30Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > Mitt Romney is racist? Cite? Romney probably isn’t racist, but many of the people he panders to are. And any red meat about welfare going to illegal immigrants or poor black people will have them rioting. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/48 "2010-03-08T00:04:26Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I think Mitt is saying simply that, if we all had to pay for our medical costs out of pocket the costs would go down because we would not be willing to pay those amounts. I completely agree with Mitt in this regard, I just can’t see how that is any kind of solution to a problem. It’s a pretty simple concept. If companies are paying $8 to $10,000 per employee for HMO’s and that money is converted directly to wages then people would migrate to insurance policies (versus HMO’s) and bank the difference over time using HSA’s as a deduction buffer. All this could be done like Massachusetts keeping insurance companies intact as well as the government’s role of regulator and not administrator. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/49 "2010-03-08T00:08:16Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Romney probably isn’t racist, but many of the people he panders to are. And any red meat about welfare going to illegal immigrants or poor black people will have them rioting. Wow, that is a seriously bigoted thing to say about the people of Massachusetts. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/50 "2010-03-08T00:21:33Z")
I think \*\*Wesley \*\*and \*\*Dan \*\*are calling the Republican party in general racists. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/51 "2010-03-08T01:31:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Wow, that is a seriously bigoted thing to say about the people of Massachusetts. Its the truth. The southern strategy was designed to build resentment against blacks. Now the contemporary GOP uses resentment against illegal aliens to rile up their base. I don’t see what is so controversial about that. We liberals have our flaws (our policies can and do have negative blowback as an example), but to imply that racial divisions aren’t a part of the GOP strategy is not even remotely true. If it weren’t, then the GOP wouldn’t be made up almost solely of white people. A big crux of the GOP movement is encouraging resentment among white people against illegal immigrants, blacks and the poor (or a combination). Its not to say all people in the GOP are like that (many are libertarians for example). But it is a big part of the contemporary GOP. > **[Southern strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy)** > > In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.\[a\] As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contri... ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/52 "2010-03-08T02:46:45Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s a pretty simple concept. If companies are paying $8 to $10,000 per employee for HMO’s and that money is converted directly to wages then people would migrate to insurance policies (versus HMO’s) and bank the difference over time using HSA’s as a deduction buffer. All this could be done like Massachusetts keeping insurance companies intact as well as the government’s role of regulator and not administrator. One minor problem. A big company has negotiating power with the insurance companies, and people buying policies one at a time don’t. Big companies are also often self-insured, with the insurance company only administering the plan, so the insurance company has no reason to spend money to deny coverage, which they do for individual policies. Company insurance has no restriction on pre-existing conditions, we know about private policies and this. Maybe if we made it illegal to discriminate based on this private would be the way to go, but as it stands anyone with an issue no longer has choice of provider, and can get screwed by big increases. Which happens when those with a choice leave, and those more expensive to insure remain. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/53 "2010-03-08T02:48:08Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Wow, that is a seriously bigoted thing to say about the people of Massachusetts. Remember how he changed his spots when he started campaigning nationally? Who knows what he really thinks, but he was close to liberal at home. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/54 "2010-03-08T03:55:26Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I think \*\*Wesley \*\*and \*\*Dan \*\*are calling the Republican party in general racists. That’s even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/55 "2010-03-08T04:00:39Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Its the truth. The southern strategy was designed to build resentment against blacks. Now the contemporary GOP uses resentment against illegal aliens to rile up their base. > > I don’t see what is so controversial about that. We liberals have our flaws (our policies can and do have negative blowback as an example), but to imply that racial divisions aren’t a part of the GOP strategy is not even remotely true. If it weren’t, then the GOP wouldn’t be made up almost solely of white people. > > A big crux of the GOP movement is encouraging resentment among white people against illegal immigrants, blacks and the poor (or a combination). > > Its not to say all people in the GOP are like that (many are libertarians for example). But it is a big part of the contemporary GOP. > > [Southern strategy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) Again, wow. What a bigoted thing to say. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/56 "2010-03-08T04:09:04Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Again, wow. What a bigoted thing to say. I don’t know if you are being absurd or what. Do you believe racial bigotry plays no role in the contemporary GOP? That resentment, fear and anger against latinos and blacks (usually under the guise of problems with immigration, jobs, welfare and crime which are blamed on latinos and blacks) isn’t a factor in their beliefs? I’m not saying it is the only facet of conservatism. But it is a big part of factions on the right. To not notice it implies you really don’t want to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204/57 "2010-03-08T04:23:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > One minor problem. A big company has negotiating power with the insurance companies, and people buying policies one at a time don’t. Big companies are also often self-insured, with the insurance company only administering the plan, so the insurance company has no reason to spend money to deny coverage, which they do for individual policies. Company insurance has no restriction on pre-existing conditions, we know about private policies and this. Maybe if we made it illegal to discriminate based on this private would be the way to go, but as it stands anyone with an issue no longer has choice of provider, and can get screwed by big increases. Which happens when those with a choice leave, and those more expensive to insure remain. Valid concerns but is it a problem with Massachusetts? We have different states with different systems and it would make sense to monitor the successes and failures. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romney-talking-about-health-care-on-letterman/531204.md?page=2)