June 29, 2012
A NYT article on Mitt Romney’s approach to health care told readers:
“Mr. Romney’s plan, like those being proposed by Republicans in Congress, would put more emphasis on controlling health costs and less on reducing the ranks of the uninsured, the primary goal of the Obama plan.”
This should say that “Mr. Romney claims his plan would put more emphasis on controlling health costs.” It certainly is not clear that it will actually do anything to control costs.
He does not propose any of the obvious measures to contain costs such as trade agreements that would make it easier for qualified foreign doctors to enter the country, driving down the cost of physicians’ services or limiting patent monopolies, thereby bringing drugs closer to their free market price. If Romney was interested in controlling costs he could give people the option to buy into Medicare which would put considerable downward pressure on the prices charged by private insurers.
Since Romney doesn’t propose any of these measures and the ones listed in the article would have a questionable impact on costs, it is wrong for the NYT to assert that his plan “would put more emphasis on controlling costs.” This is simply a claim by the Romney campaign, it is not a fact.
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