Romney made some questionable statements about what’s actually in his Mass. health care law. Fact-checking Romney on health care

Presidential contender Mitt Romney may strongly support the health reform law he passed — but he also made some questionable statements about what’s actually in it.

In his Thursday afternoon speech, Romney said that Massachusetts health reform did not include publicly run insurance.


“There’s no government insurance program,” he said, noting that Massachusetts residents “buy their own private insurance” under the law he signed in 2006.

But Massachusetts reform does actually include a government-administered plan: Commonwealth Care, which is run by the state agency that oversees Massachusetts’s health exchange, the Massachusetts Connector.

Just like many state-run Medicaid programs, Commonwealth Care contracts with private managed care companies to cover low- and moderate-income Massachusetts residents.

According to documents available on the Massachusetts Connector website, “Commonwealth Care pays the total cost of health insurance for qualified individuals who have income at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) and helps pay for the cost of insurance for other qualified individuals.”

A recent study of Commonwealth Care found the vast majority of enrollees to be satisfied with the publicly administered plan: 84 percent of enrollees said they were satisfied with their coverage, 4 percent said they were dissatisfied.

Romney also tried to create distance between his health reform plan and that of President Barack Obama by contending his was not a tax hike. “No new taxes,” one slide in his PowerPoint presentation contended.

That overlooks an assessment, levied on employers who do not provide insurance to their full-time employees. The “pay or play” provision of the state’s health reform charges employers $295 for each employee they do not offer insurance. That revenue, known as the “fair share contribution,” has been used to subsidize private health coverage and charity hospitals. J. Lester Feder contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 4:48 p.m. on May 12, 2011.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story described the $295 charge to employers as a payroll tax.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Bridget Mulcahy @ 05/12/2011 08:48 PM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story described the $295 charge to employers as a payroll tax.

This article tagged under: Mitt Romney

Fact Checking