“Romneycare” made a cameo in the Supreme Court’s Thursday verdict on President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg citing its success in a concurring opinion upholding the law.
Ginsburg wrote that attempts by several states to impose guaranteed-issue and community-rated laws were “disastrous,” leading to “skyrocketing insurance premium costs, reductions in individuals with coverage, and reductions in insurance products and providers.”
But, according to Ginsburg, when Congress was trying to pass health care reform, its members looked to Massachusetts for inspiration.
Massachusetts “cracked the adverse selection problem. By requiring most residents to obtain
insurance … the Commonwealth ensured that insurers would not be left with only the sick as customers,” she wrote.
“As a result,” wrote Ginsburg, “federal lawmakers observed, Massachusetts succeeded where other States had failed.”
“In coupling the minimum coverage provision with guaranteed issue and community-rating prescriptions, Congress followed Massachusetts’ lead,” Ginsburg added.
Mitt Romney, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has for the most part skated around the fact that a health care law he passed as Governor of Massachusetts became a model for Obamacare. On Thursday Romney again promised to repeal the national health care law if elected president.