First, despite his stylistic performance (which by most accounts caused him to "win" the debate) there was very little in the way of substance. However, that which was substantive about his arguments is cause for great concern if not all out panic. Despite what some would call a lackluster performance, President Obama was able to pin Gov. Romney down on two very critical issues: Medicare and Social Security.
As it relates to Medicare, Gov Romney was forced to concede that his plan would turn it into a voucher system which will inevitably leave many seniors facing increased costs in order to keep the same level of coverage. The idea of introducing competition into the Medicare discussion sounds intriguing until you realize that any private company's bottom line is increased profits. Some argue that competition brings prices down while simultaneously raising the quality of services and products offered. In a perfect world, that may be true but ours is not a perfect world. The world we live in is imperfect and filled with competition that neither lowers costs nor raises quality. If the merits of the competition argument are true, then how do you account for runaway gas prices? There's plenty of competition in the petroleum market, yet prices have skyrocketed in recent years. Food and utility costs are out of control as well yet there is plenty of competition in both agriculture and utility markets.
The bottom line, is that there are explanations to those questions/realities and depending on your political/philosophical leanings, your explanation may be different than mine. That's not important. What is important is that regardless of how you account for it, there are forces continuously exerting pressure on "free" markets that drive costs, quality and availability. The cyclical nature of "free" markets means that peaks and valleys are inevitable and that as surely as there will be times of prosperity there will also be times of difficulty. So the question you need to ask yourself is this: "If my healthcare coverage (and social security if Romney has his way) is subject to the ebbs and flows of the market, will I be able to survive the inevitable downturn when it comes?"
It's been four years since the housing bubble burst. Many homeowners have still not recovered their lost equity. And those are the fortunate homeowners because many lost their homes altogether. Now some will suggest that the bursting bubble is the market's way of self-correcting. Perhaps. But if we subject healthcare and social security to the same free market system and free market forces that drove many to lose their homes and put many more upside down in their mortgages, what's going to happen to the level and quality of people's lives medically under the same market conditions and forces? Can anyone afford to be "upside down" in healthcare or social security? Can we survive a "necessary" market correction when it's our healthcare or life savings that are on the line? Do we want to use our health and life savings as a social experiment? Maybe Romney & Ryan are right, but what if they're not? What if our healthcare and social security suffer the same fate as our houses and our 401 k's have suffered and in fact are still suffering? It's a pretty risky gamble just to prove a political point.
Another critical point revealed last night is something Gov. Romney went out of his way to emphasize. In response to a question about the difference between the healthcare plan he instituted in Massachusetts as Governor and the President's Affordable Care Act, he could not deny that his state plan served as the blueprint for the national plan. What he did say however, was that he intended it to be a blueprint, not for the federal government, but for individual states. So, in other words, he wants states to have the ability and freedom to choose their own path. Last night, Mitt Romney reintroduced the state's rights argument into the national discussion.
Personally, I get nervous whenever I hear anyone advocating for state's rights because the state's rights argument was used when southern states wanted to keep the federal government out of their decision about whether to abolish slavery. That decision, they argued, should have been left in the hands of the governors and state legislatures and the federal government should have kept their noses out of the state's business.
The same argument was used during the Civil Right's Movement when critical decisions were being made about desegregation and voting rights and the good news is that in each of those cases the federal government did not concede the point and history has proven those to be very good decisions that went against individual state's wishes/rights.
History gives me enough reason to be concerned about granting states the right to choose their own path regarding healthcare. But practicality gives me pause as well. Let's assume for a moment that Gov. Romney gets his wish. States would then be able to determine the type of plan they institute, or even if they're going to offer a plan at all. So what happens to you if you live in a state where the governor and state legislators decide not to put any plan in place and leave you on your own to find coverage? 49 Governors, like Mitt Romney, could decide to put some type of plan in place but you could wind up in the 1 state out of 50 where there is no coverage or plan. What happens to you then? Do you pack up and move to one of the other 49 states? Do you simply live without coverage? Or do you pay three or four times as much as those who live in neighboring states for the same coverage because you've been forced to acquire it on your own?
Just because one state offers coverage doesn't mean the other states will follow suit. If that were necessarily true we wouldn't have even had a discussion about the Affordable Care Act because the other 49 states would have followed the shining example of Gov. Romney and the state of Massachusetts in adopting their own statewide healthcare plans.
Since that's not what happened however, I'm forced to wonder what magical event will transpire that will cause each individual governor and each individual state legislature to suddenly come up with a reasonable plan. It hasn't happened yet, despite Massachusetts paving the way so what's going to cause it to happen now? And more importantly, what safeguards are going to be put in place to make sure that everyone has access and who's going to enforce those safeguards? These and other detailed specifics are what people have been asking Gov. Romney to provide for months now, and despite his strong stylistic performance last night, are still noticeably absent from his campaign.
On a related side note, much has been made by the Right during this campaign about the size and role of government. According to them government is out of control, overreaching and too intrusive. But the reality is that if the Right gets it's way, if some authority is stripped from the federal government and given to the states, it won't do anything to control either the size or reach of government. All it will do is shift the "fat" from the federal to state level. So instead of "bloated" federal government we'll have "bloated" state government. Instead of increased federal taxes we'll have increased state taxes but the net effect will be the same. So the argument here really isn't about the size or reach of government, it's about which form of government has the locus of power.
The Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Social Security. These programs, while not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, provide a guarantee that people who worked their entire lives and paid into the system will be able to collect on their investment when the time comes. It's a federal guarantee and as such, is granted to everyone. They are not entitlements. They are not handouts. They are earned benefits that cannot be stripped away at the whim of a governor or state legislature. And for that I am thankful.
Taking care of an elderly parent has reinforced my personal resolve to make sure those benefits are protected and I have no interest in letting the governor of my state decide the fate of my mother's health. Nor am I interested in rolling the dice with my mother's health care or social security in a market that has undergone 6-7 downturns of varying degrees in my lifetime. I personally, cannot afford a Mitt Romney Presidency and am very concerned about the possibility of our nation being run like a corporation by a man who sees things through the prism of profits and "acceptable" losses; who is perfectly comfortable with writing off the companies he helped close during his time at Bain Captial, as necessary market adjustments; expendable cogs in the capitalist wheel.
We got a glimpse last night at what he believes to be expendable elements of our national fabric; from Medicare to Sesame Street and I think Big Bird, Bert & Ernie, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and the Cookie Monster would agree with me that a Mitt Romney Presidency would come at too great a risk and too high a cost.
