ROMNEY WOULD REQUIRE INSURANCE:

Gov. Mitt Romney would require every person in the state to have health insurance under his plan for universal health coverage, which he has dubbed the Safety Net Care proposal. The Safety Net plan is geared toward the roughly 150,000 state residents who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and too little to buy private insurance.

“This is a group of people who are eminently insurable,” Romney said.

The plan would require people to sign up for insurance if they can afford it. Anyone who didn’t sign up could have state income tax returns withheld and their wages garnished to pay for care. “It means everyone is covered by health insurance, or they pay their own way. One or the other,” he said.

Romney said the Safety Net plan would cost $922 million annually; the same as the existing free care pool, which now pays for care for people without any insurance. The plan also relies on enrolling 106,000 people in Medicaid who are eligible but aren’t currently enrolled. That would cost about $400 million, split between the state and the federal government.