Explore Candidates → Mitt Romney on Health Care
Mitt Romney on Health Care
"It doesn't make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It's not good for them because they don't get good preventative care and disease management. But it's not good for the rest of the citizens either, because if people aren't insured, they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That's expensive. They don't have any insurance to cover it. So guess who pays? Everybody else. So it's not good for the people that aren't insured. We have to have our citizens insured, and we're not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don't have insurance aren't paying taxes. What you have to do is what we did in Massachusetts. Is it perfect? No. But we say, let's rely on personal responsibility, help people buy their own private insurance, get our citizens insured, not with a government takeover, not with new taxes needed, but instead with a free-market based system that gets all of our citizens in the system. No more free rides. It works."
2007 GOP Iowa Straw Poll debate Aug 5, 2007
As Massachusetts governor, he instituted a statewide market-based health care plan for all state residents that mandated coverage for everyone who could afford it. He does not plan to put a similar nationwide plan into place. He would instead leave it to states individually to reform health care by expanding and deregulating their own marketplaces. Romney does advocate portable coverage for all Americans.
"We came together and looked at health care [while Governor of Massachusetts] and after a couple years of work we found a way to get everyone health insurance without requiring a tax increase, without requiring a government takeover, we can find a way to get all of our citizens health insurance."
Opposed requiring employers to contribute to cost of health care plans for their employees, preferring subsidies for health coverage for low-income individuals and providing tax incentives to individuals, including the unemployed and the self-employed, for the purchase of health insurance.
Boston Globe review of 1994 campaign issues Mar 21, 2002
Every American should have access to affordable health insurance. Governor Romney will do this by providing them with premium assistance to purchase private health insurance plans. He will also help middle-income Americans by encouraging state-level health insurance market reforms, which will result in more affordable private coverage.
"It doesn't make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It's not good for them because they don't get good preventative care and disease management. But it's not good for the rest of the citizens either, because if people aren't insured, they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That's expensive. They don't have any insurance to cover it. So guess who pays? Everybody else. So it's not good for the people that aren't insured. We have to have our citizens insured, and we're not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don't have insurance aren't paying taxes. What you have to do is what we did in Massachusetts. Is it perfect? No. But we say, let's rely on personal responsibility, help people buy their own private insurance, get our citizens insured, not with a government takeover, not with new taxes needed, but instead with a free-market based system that gets all of our citizens in the system. No more free rides. It works."
2007 GOP Iowa Straw Poll debate Aug 5, 2007
Governor Romney believes that by expanding and deregulating the private health insurance market, we can decrease costs and ensure that more Americans have access to affordable, portable, quality, private health insurance.
"We found it was important to take mandates off of the private insurance companies so they could offer products that were lower priced people could afford. I wanted to take more mandates off than my legislature did [while Governor of Massachusetts]...I want to get the premiums down. I want to allow people to own their own health insurance."
I agree with the President that this legislation - while well intentioned - took the wrong approach. The Democrat SCHIP expansion bill would take children out of private insurance and put them into government insurance. It was a flawed approach. The right course is to get all children and all citizens insured with private, market-based health insurance.
"It's not perfect. We will learn from it. But the idea is for people who can afford insurance make sure they get their premiums down by taking mandates off insurance companies. Let the insurance companies offer true market-based products. And then for people who can't afford insurance, help them buy their own private policy. Don't put them on Medicaid. Get them private insurance. Get everybody in the system. It's a bit like bringing work to welfare. Bring personal responsibility to health care. Get the government out of the health care business for those 45 million uninsured, and let individuals own their own policies."
It doesn't make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It's not good for them because they don't get good preventative care and disease management. But it's not good for the rest of the citizens either, because if people aren't insured, they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That's expensive. They don't have any insurance to cover it. So guess who pays? Everybody else. So it's not good for the people that aren't insured. We have to have our citizens insured, and we're not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don't have insurance aren't paying taxes. What you have to do is what we did in Massachusetts. Is it perfect? No. But we say, let's rely on personal responsibility, help people buy their own private insurance, get our citizens insured, not with a government takeover, not with new taxes needed, but instead with a free-market based system that gets all of our citizens in the system. No more free rides. It works.
2007 GOP Iowa Straw Poll debate Aug 5, 2007
While governor, he call[ed] for tax deductions that would allow individuals to deduct out-of-pocket expenses and costs for insurance not provided by an employer.
He will expand and grow HSAs. He also supports the full deductibility of qualified medical expenses, which will allow Americans to deduct the cost of their health insurance and out-of-pocket medical expenses, where accompanied by at least catastrophic insurance.
As governor, I talked to people, and they say, "If I lose my job, I'm worried I'll lose my insurance, and my insurance premiums are getting higher and higher." And we said: We got to find a way to get everybody insured. And the last thing we want is to have the government take over health care, because anything they take over gets worse. We said: We need to find a way to get everybody in our state insured with private insurance. [We found] a way to get them insured without raising taxes, without a government takeover. It relies on personal responsibility. Every Democrat up there's talking about a form of socialized medicine, government takeover, massive tax increase. I'm the guy who actually tackled this issue. We get all of our citizens insured. We have to stand up and say the market works. Personal responsibility works.
2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007
While Governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed into legislation that required: - Employers who don't provide insurance will pay an annual fee of $295 per full-time employee. - All employers who have more than 10 employees must contribute to employee health-care costs.