The Commonwealth Fund, a foundation focused on healthcare policies, said 72 million people would be uninsured under plans proposed by Mitt Romney than under President Obama's Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
Under the reforms implemented by Obamacare, millions of Americans who don't have health insurance coverage will be eligible for it. By 2022, the report predicts, six million children with be uninsured.
In contrast, nearly 18 million children will remain uninsured if Mitt Romney is elected and, as promised, repeals the Affordable Care Act, said the report, Health Care in the 2012 Presidential Election: How the Obama and Romney Plans Stack Up.
Obama's Affordable Care Act increases insurance coverage in the U.S. It increases regulatory oversight of private insurance companies, but relies on them to offer insurance coverage. It also provides funding to the states to allow them to cover more low-income people under Medicaid.
The Affordable Care Act also creates state-based insurance exchanges to facilitate the new requirement that all Americans purchase some form of health insurance.
For his part, Romney says his goal is to enlarge the retail healthcare market, increase transparency of pricing and services, make insurance pools more flexible and introduce interstate insurance markets.
Romney's advisers say he would encourage high-deductible insurance plans that require those covered to pay much higher deductibles when seeking care than they would under conventional coverage, but offer lower premiums.
According to the Romney campaign, consumers could choose up front what products and services to buy. But patients would pay for most routine medical procedures themselves, including annual check-ups, with help from health savings accounts and tax breaks intended to combine the private markets for individual and group insurance that currently cover over 160 million Americans.
When he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney passed MassHealth. A statewide insurance mandate and coverage expansion became the model for the Affordable Care Act.
He has since disavowed the program, though it has remained extremely popular in Massachusetts.
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