The new law was, by virtually any measure, a success. Massachusetts became the first state in the country to achieve universal healthcare coverage—by 2008, 95 percent of adult residents were insured—and mortality rates among non-elderly adults dropped significantly. Romney saw the effects firsthand when a member of his cabinet was diagnosed with brain cancer. “Had I not had Romneycare,” she told him, “I would not have been able to have the treatments to save my life.”
It was also just the sort of high-profile political accomplishment that propels ambitious governors to higher office. Romney had ignored warnings that the law might backfire if he ran for president; he believed it was the right thing to do. But it was also plausible in 2006 to think that he could run on such an accomplishment. The GOP was still billing itself as “the party of ideas.” George W. Bush had been elected not that long ago on a platform of “compassionate conservatism.”
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