Now that Rick Santorum has grabbed the hot potato known as the ‘GOP presidential race front-runner‘, it’s time to learn about his stance on health care, his platform, and his history.
Let’s start with past history; while platforms and political statements are kinda interesting, it is always instructive to see what candidates did before they became candidates.
Before we dive in, let’s remember our guy Rick is an avowed small-government fiscal conservative. (SGC).
Got that? OK, off we go!
First, SGFC Santorum voted for Medicare Part D, even while acknowledging he didn’t like the lack of any funding for the handout to the elderly. FYI – Part D’s share of the nation’s debt is now over $16 trillion…
While in the Senate, SGFC Santorum worked his butt off to to include extra spending in a Medicare overhaul for hospitals in Puerto Rico. The extra spending, funded by taxpayers to the tune of $400 million, would have directly benefited Universal Health Services, a hospital management company based in his home state of PA. Santorum wasn’t entirely successful but that didn’t stop him from reaping the benefits of the revolving door; according to newspaper accounts, “Within months of leaving the Senate, SGFC Santorum joined the board of Universal Health Services, where he collected $395,000 in director’s fees and stock options before resigning last year.”
Santorum’s platform is best characterized as “platitudinous” – rife with paeans to the wonders of the free market, personal choice, doctor-centric care and other blather, along with the standard rants describing “Obamacare” as “cruel”, “one-size-fits-all”, “job-destroying”. But there’s nothing substantive beyond calls for repealing Obamacare and making Medicaid a block-grant program.
Noticeably, the platform of this champion of the free market does NOT mention SGFC Santorum’s support for Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher system. A more public acknowledgement would be unwelcome among the over-65 set, and likely wouldn’t endear him to his UHS buddies either. Oh, Santorum does echo the usual Republican call to allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines, as if this amazingly-naive approach would actually do anything to address cost or increase choice, while hypocritically denying states’ rights to control heath insurance within their borders (wait…isn’t Santorum in favor of states setting their own health care policies?)
One of the more trenchant reviews of Santorum’s platform is fromDavid Williams; his dissection of Santorum’s health care tenets is well worth considering:
“It’s interesting that he’s calling for universal, affordable access. Sounds a lot like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The only difference is this piece about “government bureaucrats.” I wonder what specific elements of PPACA he means by this -because I don’t see a lot of interference in “health care decisions” in the Act relative to the pre-PPACA days.
It’s hard to argue with the idea of “targeted” and “patient-centered” solutions. And actually, that’s the path taken by PPACA. Didn’t opponents criticize the length of the bill? A lot of that is because there are many different targeted approaches taken: some for individuals, others for small business, others for medium sized organizations, still others for large entities. Other targeted interventions are in place for high-risk patients…”
One last thing. SGFC Santorum also doesn’t believe in evolution.
Oh my.
Feb
16
