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For Republicans, the idea of requiring every American to have health insurance is one of the most abhorrent provisions of the Democrats' health overhaul bills.
"Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty."
But Hatch's opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.
In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. "It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time."
So while President Clinton was pushing for employers to cover their workers in his 1993 bill, John Chafee of Rhode Island, along with 20 other GOP senators and Rep. Bill Thomas of California, introduced legislation that instead featured an individual mandate. Four of those Republican co-sponsors — Hatch, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Robert Bennett of Utah and Christopher Bond of Missouri — remain in the Senate today.
The GOP's 1993 measure included some features Republicans still want Democrats to consider, including damage award caps for medical malpractice lawsuits.
But the summary of the Republican bill from the Clinton era and the Democratic bills that passed the House and Senate over the past few months are startlingly alike.
Beyond the requirement that everyone have insurance, both call for purchasing pools and standardized insurance plans. Both call for a ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums because a person has been sick in the past. Both even call for increased federal research into the effectiveness of medical treatments — something else that used to have strong bipartisan support, but that Republicans have been backing away from recently.
"Pauly, a conservative health economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says it wasn't just his idea. Back in the late 1980s — when Democrats were pushing not just a requirement for employers to provide insurance, but also the possibility of a government-sponsored single-payer system — "a group of economists and health policy people, market-oriented, sat down and said, 'Let's see if we can come up with a health reform proposal that would preserve a role for markets but would also achieve universal coverage.' "
The idea of the individual mandate was about the only logical way to get there, Pauly says. That's because even with the most generous subsidies or enticements, "there would always be some Evel Knievels of health insurance, who would decline coverage even if the subsidies were very generous, and even if they could afford it, quote unquote, so if you really wanted to close the gap, that's the step you'd have to take."
:shrug: so some Republicans used to support a bad idea?
gosh gee wiz, what an astonishment :roll:
you know, we knew that they were going to spend alot of time trying to blame George Bush for their failures; it's kind of hilarious that now they are going to start trying to blame Republicans for their "accomplishments" too:lol:
the mandate itself isn't the socialism; it's the desire to replace this system with a single-payer that is socialist in nature; what we have in place under Obamacare is Corporatism; and plenty of Republicans are corporatists.
That's weird, because many of your conservative buddies are repeatedly calling this bill socialism. Are you saying when I repeatedly hear "Obamacare" referred to as socialist, what they really mean is some nonexistant bill that an unknown quantity of Democratic senators really wanted?
How many, do you think? Because they couldn't even get 60 votes for a public option, let alone single payer.
This latest bill isn't socialism. It's a hodge-podge of garbage that's designed to fail. It's purpose is to increase the cost of private health insurance and decrease competition so that more of the public will no longer be able to afford their own insurance.
All they had to do was leave things alone to accomplish that.
the mandate itself isn't the socialism; it's the desire to replace this system with a single-payer that is socialist in nature; what we have in place under Obamacare is Corporatism; and plenty of Republicans are corporatists.
That's weird, because many of your conservative buddies are repeatedly calling this bill socialism. Are you saying when I repeatedly hear "Obamacare" referred to as socialist, what they really mean is some nonexistant bill that an unknown quantity of Democratic senators really wanted?
How many, do you think? Because they couldn't even get 60 votes for a public option, let alone single payer.
This latest bill isn't socialism. It's a hodge-podge of garbage that's designed to fail. It's purpose is to increase the cost of private health insurance and decrease competition so that more of the public will no longer be able to afford their own insurance.
All they had to do was leave things alone to accomplish that.
You know, we knew that they were going to spend alot of time trying to blame George Bush for their failures; it's kind of hilarious that now they are going to start trying to blame Republicans for their "accomplishments" too:lol:
Look, I can support the mandate being at the State level. I can even understand the arguments for tort reform or the fact that reforms don't do much to reduces cost, but don't lie to the public about the bill being this terrible piece of legislation when it's very evident that most of the ideas the bill contains were Republican ideas but suddently they're no longer popular because your party no longer held power.
wait. most? of the main pieces of this 'plan' (if its' intended to fail, is it still a plan?) you've got one idea - the individual mandate - that was originally developed as a slightly better Republican alternative to present as a compromise position to a Democrat position (the employer mandate).
out of a 2,000 page bill.
and it's STILL a dumb idea, and unConstitutional as well. Republicans have plenty of dumb ideas, and conservatives have no problem calling them on it; remember the outcry over Bush's push for immigration amnestreform?
i foresee this getting bigger as time goes on, it's going to be hilarious to watch democrats increasingly try to blame Obamacare on Republicans to a dubious public watching their healthcare system get trashed.
So, are you still going with the "it's a secret plot to get single-payer" theory? I can't tell.
If you think it's just "one idea" from the GOP that made the bill, you haven't been paying attention
cpwill
why would you even care if it was mandated....chances are you already have Insurance....I do......Are you actually saying that you are sticking up for people 'other' than yourself and fighting for those who cannot afford insurance but will have insurance in the future..if so, that is so un-conservative of you to think of anyone but yourself....You know they can opt out for many reasons and not be required to have insurance....
Where 'exactly' in the bill does it say the end games is 'single payer'....I have watched and re-watched many committee hearings and have not heard that claim made...
cpwill,
Barney Frank and Pres. Obama are correct. It's what I've been saying throughout this and the "Health Care Right...Mandate" thread. If the People decided as a majority that it was in the nation's best interest to allow an increase in the income tax to pay for government-sponsored health care, we'd have it cheaply. Effeciency is another matter.
but here's a question: if the individual mandate was a Republican Idea that the Democrats took; is it that individual mandate is a good idea - and thus the Republicans were smarter than the Democrats, and thought of it first, or is it that the individual mandate is a bad idea - and thus Republicans were smart enough to discard it while Democrats were dumb enough to leap on it?
:shrug: so some Republicans used to support a bad idea?
gosh gee wiz, what an astonishment :roll:
you know, we knew that they were going to spend alot of time trying to blame George Bush for their failures; it's kind of hilarious that now they are going to start trying to blame Republicans for their "accomplishments" too:lol:
So why is it socialism now but before it was just a "bad idea?"
But here's a question: if the individual mandate was a Republican Idea that the Democrats took; is it that individual mandate is a good idea - and thus the Republicans were smarter than the Democrats, and thought of it first, or is it that the individual mandate is a bad idea - and thus Republicans were smart enough to discard it while Democrats were dumb enough to leap on it?
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