Treasurer Tim Cahill ripped Gov. Deval Patrick and President Obama this morning for health care initiatives that the independent gubernatorial hopeful alleged will “bankrupt the country in four years.'“Last week Gov. Patrick criticized me as ‘missing in action' on the issue of health care in Massachusetts,' Cahill said. “In reality, I've been critical of Gov. Patrick's implementation and management of the Massachusetts universal health care program for a long time.'
Cahill alleged the governor has “spent like we're in a booming economy at a time when we're experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.'
“If President Obama and the Democrats repeat the mistakes of the health insurance mandate on a national level, they will bankrupt this country within four years,' Cahill said. “It is time for the President and the Democratic leadership to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that does not threaten to wipe out the American economy.'
Cahill's call for a new plan resembled the statement made during US Sen. Scott Brown's insurgent campaign.
But even as he called for knocking down barriers that exist statewide and nationally to allow for-profit plans to compete with non-profit insurers, Cahill was short on specifics. He did say expensive mandates that require all health insurance plans cover certain benefits in the Bay State should be “on the table.'
Cahill said he wants to “level the playing field' among medical service providers, like community hospitals and big city hospitals that receive disparate reimbursement from insurers. Yet Cahill did not offer his own health care plan as he called for Congress to go back to the drawing board on its health care overhaul, and did not spell out what he'd do as governor to solve the current health care crisis.
Standing in his state house office, Cahill insisted he was speaking as treasurer, not a candidate for governor. Cahill said he “firmly' believes that health care is a right.
“But as congress and President Obama prepare to ram though a government-run health care plan, they should heed the warnings about the way in which Gov. Patrick has managed the same model in Massachusetts,' Cahill, a former Democrat said.