Five years ago, Gov. Mitt Romney championed health care reform for Massachusetts, promising universal coverage and lower costs. And like the president he wants to unseat, he got it half right. Well, sort of.

Earlier this week, the presumed Republican front-runner announced his presidential exploratory committee www.mittromney.com/. But nowhere in his videotaped declaration does he mention the failed experiment still raging in his home state, where, sure, most of the residents enjoy coverage, but costs have jumped higher than anyone could have dreamed.

When Romney signed the bill into law, most expected it to cover about 215,000 at an estimated annual cost of $725,000. Now, most studies agree that reform slashed the uninsured rate in the Bay State by 2 percent to 3 percent, give or take. But the annual expense has ballooned to $1.5 billion – to cover 2.5 percent of the state's population. I'm no Warren Buffet, but that doesn't sound like much of a deal. And I've heard horror stories from brokers there. The reality is much worse than my rhetoric.