Stossel on Beck, on RomneyCare and Nationalized Care

This is a good segment that among other things rips RomneyCare’s real fiscal results:

Here’s the transcript of Beck’s opening monologue on RomneyCare:

Beck: …. Remember, while the White House is waging war on Fox, what this is really all about is the effort to push health care.

I want to show you what we’re headed for with universal health care. …. Don’t forget …. we don’t have to look across the pond or in Canada. There is an example that is much closer to home. Yes, it’s in Barney Frank’s home state. Universal health care. How’s that RomneyCare working out for them, hmm?

Since 2006, the state’s overall cost — remember, the overall cost is supposed to go down — there in Massachusetts program (costs) have skyrocketed 42%. It’s out of control; it’s eating up the state budget.

Democrats are now scrambling to compensate. How? Taxes. They’ve increased fines also for those who didn’t get insurance under the individual mandate. They’ve increased business penalties. They’ve taxed insurers and hospitals. They’ve raised premiums. They’ve even in Massachusetts — this isn’t, y’know, Botswana — Massachusetts, they have resorted to group doctor visits. Like, okay, “He’s got a gallstone and I have a sore throat. Can you do this at the same time?”

It’s still not enough. So what are they considering? Excluding coverage of “low-priority, low-value services.” Also, limit the coverage. Implementing spending caps.

Wait a minute here. This sounds like everything they’re denying would happen in a (national) universal plan.

So less service, less innovation. Oh, and guess who decides what the value is. Not the doctors. Not you. Those in the Statehouse. I can’t wait.

In the Stossel interview (Stossel has an “I’m not settled in yet” look, which is understandable given that this is his first Fox appearance since leaving ABC), Beck talks about his efforts to set up a health care plan building on the idea of health savings accounts, and asserts that such an arrangement is illegal where he is based for business purposes, which I believe is New York. Stossel points out that individuals and families under such health savings account arrangements are more vigilant consumers, and that doctors welcome the opportunity to get paid directly without hassling with mountains of government/insurance company paperwork.

In an e-mail, Gregg Jackson also points out that Beck/Stossel didn’t get to the $50 subsidized abortions and other RomneyCare shortcomings, which is true enough, but normally wouldn’t be expected in a Stossel interview.

That said, as yours truly has noted (here and here), abortion is indeed in ObamaCare. As of yesterday, it remained present in the BaucusCare iteration. As I wrote several months ago, even if abortion disappeared from all related proposals under consideration tomorrow, ObamaCare’s various incarnations are moral clunkers.