I’m a Medical Student that won’t be accepting the government plan in my practice. I’d rather work 2 days a week for “boutique” patient’s that actually pay for my time and expertise. I’ll take up real-estate or consulting in my remaining time to make ends meet, or I’ll practice medicine in another country where I will get paid for my work.

that this same Mitt Romney remains a leading candidate for the GOP nomination in 2012?

I mean, yes, I get that Romney is a fine fiscal conservative, and, of the final three for the GOP in 2008, he was in fact my choice, but if we’re in a mode of finding reasons to disqualify candidates why doesn’t this destroy his prospects?

I have no problem with Massachusetts trying (and apparently failing) to run a statewide version of socialized medicine. It limits the reach and can be an instructive case study for other states.

Likewise, I do not fault Romney for attempting this in Mass. It fits the states political proclivities. I would have a huge problem if he tried promoting this at the federal level.

Let’s not be fair-weather federalists. Part of that is allowing states to try bad policies. That’s often the best way for us to demonstrate they are bad policies.

Romney did indeed give the rest of the country a perfect example of what not to do.

I will say as a caveat for Romney that he didn’t have much choice in the matter himself. However his ongoing support for MassHealth during the campaign is pretty damaging. It’s a debacle here in MA and I was one of the early adopters (and one of the people who still have to adopt it).

MassHealth is like Windows Vista in that sense: the marketing campaign sounded super, and right up until you can’t boot from the licensed DVDs, you think it’s fantastic.

In reality it has actually been counterproductive, more expensive, more bureaucratic, less flexible, less intelligent, and more unfree than the alternatives. I live here and I know a lot of people share that view, several years into The Plan.

On one level, just speaking electorally, Romney is going to have to disavow his involvement with MassHealth if he expects to get elected to anything. It will be another in a long and unsuccessful series of attempts to convince people that he’s sincere. Maybe someone can help rehabilitate him, who knows?

I have a theory that Universal Health Care is only viable in a Conservative society:

1) One in which people value work more than taking off work
2) One in which people don’t sue preemptively
3) One in which people take care of their own health and are reluctant to spend public money.
4) One in which people don’t try actively to cheat the system

Massachusetts fails all four of those tests and that’s one of the reasons the MassHealth plan is useless here. It’s a liberal state, full of liberal people, who think money grows on trees.