The curious thing about Mitt Romney is that whenever I hear him say something, a little voice inside my head whispers, “I wonder if that’s true?” It’s the same little voice that talks to me when I’m shopping for a used car or when I get an email from an exiled Nigerian prince.
Like the used car salesman and the Nigerian prince, Romney manages to sound convincing to a point, but the trick is always to ignore the overall sales pitch and examine the finer points because that’s where they get you.
The most recent Romney sales pitch was his explanation that he supported “Romneycare” in Massachusetts but would promise to repeal the virtually identical “Obamacare” in the USA because, to paraphrase his statement, “The citizens of each state have different needs and each one should be allowed to choose the health care legislation that suits them.”
As soon as I heard this, the little voice in my head went into overdrive.
- Are the citizens in each of the fifty states really that much different?
- Are these the same criteria that Mitt used in his fantastically successful business model?
- Who wins and who loses if we follow Mitt’s advice?
On the first point, my heart wanted to agree with Mitt. I would love to live in an America that was rich in diversity, a place where driving from Maine to Florida or from New York to Chicago would deliver a cornucopia of cultural experiences equal to a trek across Asia with a few stops at the cantina scene from Star Wars. But the truth of the matter is that we are now pretty much the same in the USA, no matter where you go. In fact, if you blindfolded me, tossed me out of an airplane (with a parachute please) on a random flight over the USA, I could no doubt land anywhere and walk to a Home Depot, Bank of America ATM, McDonald’s, Jiffy Lube or Bed Bath & Beyond in a few minutes. I can walk into any grocery chain anywhere in the USA and find the same products from sea to shining sea. When I turn on my radio, or television, or grab a newspaper or magazine to see what’s going on, the odds are that my source of information is from one of only six mega-media corporations in the USA. We are a nation of over 300 Million people and it only takes six corporations to deliver the news, and even those six are eerily similar (with the exception of Fox, which is just creepy, not eerie).
So, it turns out Governor, that we’re really not that different and what works in Massachusetts really ought to work in North Dakota or Arizona.
Moving on to the second question, what was Mitt Romney’s business plan relative to his alleged belief that each state has different needs and we need different health care models in each? In a word: Staples. Staples, Mitt’s pride and joy, has locations in 48 of the 50 states with plans to expand into Alaska and Hawaii, no doubt. Have you ever walked into a Staples in one state and had to go outside to check the sign to make sure you are really in a Staples because this Staples is so much different from the Staples where you live? No. They all the same, all aisles with racks of 3-ring binders, ink cartridges at the front of the store and the office furniture towards the back. Everyone working there wears a red polo shirt and there are bags of overpriced candy at the checkout. Did you remember to bring your Staples card? If not, no problem, just give your phone number to any checkout clerk in one of hundreds of locations across 48 states and the District of Columbia and they have your account. A uniform solution to meet basic needs, the same formula in all locations across the USA. It works. It’s successful. It’s made Mitt Romney a very wealthy man. In fact, in the time it’s taking me to write this article, Mitt’s made another hundred grand.
So, why is politician Mitt not keen on implementing the same successful business plan with health care that businessman Mitt used with spiral notebooks and overpriced office chairs?
The answer takes us to question three. Who wins and who loses if we drop the recent reforms to health care implemented by President Obama? If you are a person with a pre-existing condition, you lose. If you are an unemployed 24 year old girl with asthma living at home with mom & dad, you lose. If you are a patient in a hospital looking at extensive procedures, long term therapy and expensive medications, you lose. You lose because under the current reforms, you are still covered, still able to get care and still free from the insurance company telling you that you’ve exceeded the limit on how much they will pay.
And who wins? The same people who won when Mitt was CEO at Bain win again. The corporate shareholders win. No, not the mutual fund 401K nest egg shareholders, the real shareholders are the big winners. The same people wealthy enough to invest in Private Equity where $250K is the entry fee are the winners under Mitt’s plan. The insurance corporations win, the pharmaceutical corporations win, the hospital corporations win. Mitts Friends Win.
At least that’s one area where Mitt is consistent. As he once said, “Corporations are people, my friend”.
johntmay 