GOP Supported Individual Mandate To Prevent ‘Government Takeover’ Of Health Care
The Los Angeles Times’ Noam Levey looks at the history of the individual health insurance mandate and discovers that not only was the provision designed by Republicans as an alternative to President Bill Clinton’s health care reform plan in the 1990s, but it was specifically seen as a way to prevent a “government takeover” of health care:
“We were thinking, if you wanted to achieve universal coverage, what was the way to do it if you didn’t do single payer?” said Paul Feldstein, a health economist at UC Irvine, who co-wrote the 1991 plan with Pauly.
Feldstein and Pauly compared mandatory health insurance to requirements to pay for Social Security, auto insurance, or workers’ compensation.
So too did the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler, who in 1989 wrote a health plan that also included an insurance requirement.
“If a young man wrecks his Porsche and has not had the foresight to obtain insurance, we may commiserate, but society feels no obligation to repair his car,” Butler told a Tennessee health conference that year.
“But healthcare is different. If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street, Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance.… A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract,” said Butler, who was the foundation’s director of domestic policy studies.
Levey notes that fully a third of Republicans supported a bill that included a national individual requirement, introduced by then-Senator and current Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee. Sens. Bob Dole (R-KS), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) all backed that measure. The National Federation of Independent Business, a conservative small-business group, even “praised the bill ‘for its emphasis on individual responsibility.’”
And this wasn’t some fluke of the ’90s either. As recently as 2007, “[t]en Republican senators — including Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, now a GOP leader — signed on to a bill that year by Bennett and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to achieve universal health coverage.” The legislation penalized individuals who did not purchase insurance coverage.
Listing all of the GOP presidential candidates who have previously supported the mandate (Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman, Pawlenty) would only belabor the point, which is that the GOP’s new-found religion on the mandate and its constitutionality is driven by the political need to unravel the Democrats’ crowning social achievement, not any great concerns about policy, constitutionality, or freedom.
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, May 31, 2011
The Right’s Criticism of Obama On Japan And The Budget Ring Hollow
President Obama’s not acting as a leader. That’s what the right will tell you. On Saturday, the president talked about women’s history month and the need for women to receive the same on the dollar as a man. (Note to self: we obviously haven’t come a long way baby, Gloria Steinem better keep that bra handy to be burned again). And then, the president had the audacity to go golfing! And select his picks for the NCAA tournament! The shame of it!
Those on the right will argue that the president is not leading this nation, nor his Congress because he didn’t speak on the budget, hasn’t presented himself before Congress on the budget and didn’t address Japan or Libya in his Saturday radio address. And of course, how dare he take a day off during all of this that is going on in the world!
What they won’t tell you is how that radio address is usually prerecorded, often days before. What they won’t tell you is how the president met with Democratic leaders in the Senate regarding the budget last week. What they won’t tell you is that just 24 hours before this radio address, the president spoke of Japan and of Libya. What they won’t tell you is how the United States has sent money, resources, and our Navy, arguably the best in the world, to assist Japan at this time. What they won’t tell you is how the president has a leader in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is discussing along with our allies internationally, the U.N. and NATO our next steps in Libya; which even a Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, stated we must approach very cautiously or we end up in a longterm military problem in Libya, which we clearly can’t afford being involved in two wars already.
What does the right want from this man? If the president had spoken about Japan on Saturday as well as Friday would that have stopped their nuclear power plants from having four explosions, two fires, and leaking radiation at 400 times the level a human should be exposed to it? Would he have stopped the 140,000 people in a 20 mile radius who were told to stay home, work, please don’t go outside? Maybe if he had spoken about Japan a few weeks ago he could have single handedly stopped the earthquake and tsunami, right!?!! And of course, speaking about Libya, he could stop the madman at the helm, their leader, their dictator!?!
Nah, he can’t do that. He’s just the president folks; although with the enormous responsibilities the right lay upon his shoulders you’d think he was God; who I am told, took the seventh day off. The question is, did he go golfing?
By: Leslie Marshall, U.S. News and World Report, March 16, 2011
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