An apology to Deval Patrick

As many correspondents have pointed out (some with an air of triumph that makes me question their loyalty), my column today accused Deval Patrick of being a Republican.

A case in point: the Republicans should have gone into this election with a national plan for universal market-based healthcare (something that Republican governors in Massachusetts and California are trying to implement). If the Obama administration makes progress on this, it will be all the more necessary next time, but how stupid to have yielded the advantage.

Of course in the case of Massachusetts I was thinking of Mitt Romney's plan, and got my tenses muddled up. Sorry about that.

The claim that a plan with a mandate can be called market-based has also come under fire. I stand by that, while acknowledging that "market-based" might mean a lot of different things. For the purpose of this column I only meant to contrast these Republican designs--which leave a dominant role for private insurance schemes--with single-payer models. I'm not a huge fan of the Massachusetts plan, in fact, because I think it important to get away from employer-provided coverage. If you're curious to read about a plan I like very much, here is another article.