Remember all the talk of Iraq the Model during the Bush Administration? Given the civil war, terrorism, and basketcase central government of Iraq, the rest of the Middle East understandably decided to take a pass on copying the model. On the domestic front, America should be wary of embracing Massachusetts as a model on health care.

Mitt Romney made many of the same promises about his bill in 2006 that Obama makes regarding his bill today. "Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced," Romney boasted in the Wall Street Journal four years ago. It didn't quite work out that way. Massachusetts has the most expensive health care in the world, and the costs are rising, not falling. We've seen this movie before, folks. It doesn't have a happy ending.

Massachusetts has served as the model for ObamaCare. Democrats are loathe to admit it because it would credit Mitt Romney as the idea man for their party. Republicans, many of whom hypocritically praised RomneyCare then (as they bash ObamaCare now) are loathe to admit it because it would place the leading candidate for their party's presidential nomination alongside the Democrats' leading candidate for their party's presidential nomination in supporting a government takeover of health care.

Jim Antle's Masscare Massacre American Spectator article is a must read. Massachusetts's 2006 landmark health care reform has busted state budgets, resulted in higher premiums, and sparked talk of rationing. Massachusetts is the mess that America will become.

"Medicaid costs have continued to explode, rising from $7.5 billion to an estimated $9.2 billion since the Massachusetts health care law has taken effect," Antle writes. "More people now have coverage, but of the 407,000 newly insured only 32 percent paid for their insurance entirely on their own. The remaining 68 percent were either partially or wholly subsidized by the taxpayers. Only 5 percent of newly insured Massachusetts residents who are not receiving any taxpayer benefits obtained their coverage through the state's 'Connector' health care exchange." Why is this salient? ObamaCare is in large part a replication of RomneyCare. Like RomneyCare, ObamaCare mandates health insurance. Like RomneyCare, ObamaCare subsidizes the health insurance of middle- and lower-income people. Get the picture?

A canary in the coal mine--Massachusetts--is sending the rest of us a message. "The insurance companies were at the table, the hospitals were at the table, the large providers were at the table," explains Democrat-turned-independent state treasurer Tim Cahill, who recalls the similarities between RomneyCare and ObamaCare. "The taxpayers and small businesses weren't at the table. It appears to be repeating itself at the national level."

"Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won't take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement."

So, explain to me how well this will work out when the whole country is under some kind of national system resembling Medicaid on steroids?

Come on, asdf, Obama will nationalize the drug companies and their retailers. Problem solved. ; )

Did you hear The One today demonizing more of the private sector by talking about how he will protect people from that evil Medical Industrial Complex - i.e., the insurance companies?

It could not be more clear that this guy's intention is to destroy the private sector having government eat up more and more of it and replace those services with more government and more bureaucratic control.

There was this old guy named Karl Marx who happened to be an advocate of these techniques.