Earlier today, Chris Christie endorsed Mitt Romney for president, describing him as “a real hero in Republican circles.”  During his announcement, he disparaged conservatives who oppose Romneycare, by suggesting that any attempt to compare it to Obamacare is “completely intellectually dishonest.”  Governor Christie might want to look in the mirror or step down as a prominent spokesman for the Republican Party.

Any attempt to suggest that the two healthcare plans are fundamentally different is completely intellectually dishonest.

Romney on Romneycare

“Let me tell you this about our system in Massachusetts: 92 percent of our people were insured before we put our plan in place. Nothing’s changed for them. The system is the same. They have private market-based insurance.  We had 8 percent of our people that weren’t insured. And so what we did is we said let’s find a way to get them insurance, again, market-based private insurance. We didn’t come up with some new government insurance plan.” (FoxNews-Google Debate, Sept. 22)

Reality

Like every egregious government intervention in the private sector, MassCare drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion.  Massachusetts individual health premiums are now the highest in the nation.   The other 92% are being forced to pay higher premiums for what is no longer “market-based insurance.”  The 8% that are “uninsured” were put on government programs, primarily Medicaid.  That’s exactly what Obama seeks to do with Obamacare.  The costs will be even higher once the federal government stops subsidizing Romneycare through extra Medicaid grants.

Obama on Obamacare

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” (Townhall meeting in New Hampshire, Aug. 11, 2009)

Reality

Obamacare has raised the cost of private health insurance premiums by 9% in just one year, even before its enactment.  One study estimates that Obamacare will raise the cost of individual health insurance premiums by 55%-85%, while a healthy young male may experience a rate increase of between 90% and 130%.  Worse, many employers plan to drop healthcare coverage.

The bottom line is that both Romneycare and Obamacare are unconstitutional government interventions that will destroy the free-market and impose crippling costs on private insurers, thereby engendering a final push toward single payer.  This is how socialism is enacted here.  Americans, unlike Europeans, intuitively recoil from overt socialism.  As such, Democrats impose their policies by blowing up a private industry until people become dependent on government by default.  This is what Obamacare will do on a federal level; this is what Romneycare will do on a state level, albeit with help from other states’ taxpayers.

Obamacare and Romneycare are two peas in a pod.  Oh, and yes, Obama administration officials met with Romneycare advisors, who inspired the blueprint for Obamacare.

It is simply intellectually dishonest for anyone to suggest that Romneycare is anything but an anathema to everything Republicans have advocated for the past half century.  Then again, it might depend on which “Republican circles” you are aligned with.