What kind of health insurance do the GOP candidates get?

What kind of health insurance do the GOP candidates get?

The Romney campaign refused to say where he gets his health care coverage. But because of the health care reform law he signed as governor of Massachusetts, he is lucky to live in one of the few states with good insurance options for a 64-year-old unemployed man with a wife who has a preexisting health condition: multiple sclerosis. Massachusetts law, like a provision of the national health care law set to go into effect in 2014, requires insurers to offer coverage to all comers and limits the amount they can raise premiums because of a customer's age or health history. The Romneys have a choice of 41 private health plans, with premiums ranging from $997 to $1,026 a month.

"His experience in Massachusetts would be profoundly different from any other state," said Sara Iselin, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation and the former commissioner of the Massachusetts Health Care Finance and Policy Division.

Only one other candidate buys his insurance on the individual market. Rick Santorum, the 53-year-old former senator from Pennsylvania, is enrolled in insurance that "is totally private, and not related to his time in Congress," his spokesman, John Brabender, said in a phone interview. And if Republicans succeed in their stated goal of repealing "Obamacare," Santorum likely won't be firing his insurer any time soon. One of the first pieces of the health reform law to go into effect was a ban on denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. His youngest daughter, Isabella, suffers from a rare genetic disorder that requires ongoing and costly treatment, just the sort of preexisting condition that makes her look like a poor insurance risk. All insurance plans issued after March 23, 2010, must cover children up to age 19, regardless of prior illnesses.

Many of the Republican presidential nominee hopefuls enroll in public-employee benefit programs that give them the advantages of large-group pricing - and heavy taxpayer subsidy of their premiums. Newt Gingrich, 68, is enrolled in Medicare and buys his own supplemental insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield, according to his campaign. Paul, 76, as a member of Congress, gets his insurance coverage from the federal-employee benefit program, his campaign says. Rick Perry, 61, gets his insurance from the state of Texas, a benefit he can continue to receive for the rest of his life. (According to the Texas Tribune, Perry is already collecting a state pension, even while he earns his salary as governor.)

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