Romney's plan empowers citizens

IN THE Aug. 23 editorial "Romney's healthcare amnesia," the Globe dismisses the individual choices and free-market principles at the heart of the Massachusetts healthcare law. Under the plan Mitt Romney signed as Massachusetts governor, state citizens are empowered to enter the private market and obtain their own health insurance. Personal responsibility is the defining principle.

To facilitate movement toward a free market, Romney's reforms created a new insurance marketplace and provided for subsidies to lower-income state citizens to obtain their own private plan. While some have painted these as government intrusions into the market, they are actually government's way of facilitating individual empowerment.

In a big government-run plan, those with lower-incomes would be forced to enroll in a government-designed one-size-fits-all insurance program. Not taking this approach, Romney as governor redirected nearly $1.3 billion spent reimbursing hospitals for providing free care to instead help individuals purchase health insurance that meets their needs.

While the Legislature did not adopt all of his free-market proposals, Governor Romney helped insurers create lower-cost plans by modernizing our insurance markets. Among other reforms, insurance companies can now offer high-deductible plans with health savings accounts, and younger people can enroll in lower-cost plans tailored to their lifestyle.

What we have done in Massachusetts is unleash the power of competition, not by putting the government in the healthcare business, but by empowering individuals.

TIMOTHY MURPHY
Woburn
The writer was state secretary of health and human services in the Romney administration.